


KU AU #1: The Fifteenth Secret

by NancyTWriter



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22076470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyTWriter/pseuds/NancyTWriter
Summary: First in a series of AU stories set at the University of Kansas in Lawrence! Sam, Dean, and Cas are students. When Sam stops an attempted rape he's stalked by the criminal. Dean tries to protect his brother, while Cas protects a secret of Dean's.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	KU AU #1: The Fifteenth Secret

March was mild that year, but late on a Wednesday night, Jayhawk Boulevard was pretty well deserted. Only a very occasional car rolled past the rangy freshman wearing a backpack and talking on his cell phone as he passed the green space between two large stone classroom buildings.

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know. Yeah, you’re right then, better to keep busy. Want my dinner-dishes duty every night?” He chuckled. “I’m on my way back, you need anything? – No, dude, I’m walking. I’ve been sitting in the library for hours, I needed – ”

A woman screamed somewhere to his right, short and sharp. The freshman stopped dead. 

“Yeah, you did. I don’t – ”

There was another scream. The guy pivoted to his right and ran.

The slope down to Memorial Drive was steep, but even as he tried not to stumble while running at top speed he was summing up what was happening below: A car was idling on Memorial Drive and, a few yards behind it, two figures were fighting violently.

“Hey!” he yelled as loudly and ferociously as possible. “Hey, you!”

The taller figure looked up the slope, then struck the shorter figure in the face. The shorter person, a blonde girl, went down hard, and the taller figure sprang for the idling car. He got to the door just as the freshman reached the girl.

The freshman made as if to lunge toward the car, stopped himself and stayed by the girl, but stared intently at the car as it sped away. Then he crouched beside the girl, who was stirring feebly as if she were still trying to fight even half-conscious.

“Are you OK?” the freshman asked.

The girl looked up at him, flinched, seemed to realize that her attacker was gone, and sat up with a little grunt. A corner of her mouth was bleeding, and even by streetlight he could see the red mark under her eye that was going to be a massive bruise.

A security call box, affixed to a pole with a distinctive cube-shaped blue light on top, was only a few yards away. She’d probably been trying to get to that. The freshman’s long legs reached it in only a few steps. “Hello? Yeah, I’m on, we’re on Memorial Drive, a guy was just attacking a girl here. He drove away in a white Hyundai Accent, the license plate started with DIV. Yeah, she’s still here. I don’t know. She’s just sitting up now. But he hit her in the face at least a couple times. No, I’m nobody. I mean, I don’t know her, I was just walking by and heard her scream. Yeah, I’ll stay here. Great, thanks. ΄Bye.”

He hurried back over to the girl, who was standing, pulling her denim jacket close in front, staring at her purse on the ground as if she weren’t sure she should pick it up.

“The cops have a car real close by, they’ll be here in just a minute,” he told her.

She nodded.

“I’m gonna stay right here till they get here. You’ll be OK.”

“I feel so damn stupid,” she said tensely, not looking at him. “I thought the chances of anyone, of anyone being out here, I mean – me specifically, were so minuscule.”

“Well, they are, really. I mean, there’s probably lots of girls walking around right now without anyone – ”

“And I’ve taken self-defense classes. I thought, I can take care of myself. I had no idea how much it would hurt, or how – What an idiot!”

“Hey.” The young man tried to look her in the eye, bending slightly to do it. “You are not the criminal here. OK? It’s not your fault.”

She nodded, trying to meet his gaze, trying to smile. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Hey. Glad to do it. What’s your name?”

“Mm, Jess.” It made her tense up even to give out the monosyllable, but the guy seemed to understand.

“Hi, Jess. I’m Sam Winchester,” he said, as the blue-and-white Dodge Charger of the KU Police came rushing down Memorial Drive toward them.

“It was him, wasn’t it?”

“We – don’t know that,” Sam replied.

Jess’ breath caught in her throat. “It was him.”

His eyes on the car, Sam raised his eyebrows and nodded, just once.

From the University Daily Kansan:

KU and Lawrence police are declining to say whether an attack on campus Wednesday night was the work of a serial rapist who has struck four times over the past two years.

Captain Jodie Mills, Public Information Officer of the KU Police Department, said that the attack was similar to the crimes committed by “MA15,” so called because he brands his victims’ faces with that mark.

“He attacked on a public roadway, had a weapon but also used physical force, and escaped in a stolen vehicle,” Mills said. “These are all trademarks of that particular perpetrator. Since the attack was very fortunately interrupted, we can’t say for sure, but the joint Lawrence-KU task force is looking closely at the possible connections.”

The attack was disrupted when Sam Winchester, Wichita freshman, heard the victim scream and ran toward the attacker, causing him to flee.

“It was no big deal,” Winchester said in a telephone interview yesterday. “I was glad I was there. Anyway, she really fought him. She made it hard for him to do anything to her.”

Captain Mills urged all women who are alone at night to take advantage of KU’s Safe Ride and Safe Bus programs.

“Dude! You’re a hero and you don’t tell your own brother?”

“Hey, I’d tell my brother if I was a hero.” Sam’s voice, on Dean Winchester’s phone, sounded muffled, as if he were calling from a room where studying was going on. “All I did was yell and run at the guy. Hero would’ve been if I’d caught him or something.”

“Sammy, you kept a woman from being raped and branded in the face. That makes you a hero in my book.”

There was a moment of silence. “Thanks, Dean. That means a lot to me.”

“So I’d say this calls for me buying a broke at the Wheel tonight.”

A chuckle, and another second’s silence. “Sounds good. Is it OK if I bring along a friend? He just had a bad breakup, and I told him I’d hang with him tonight.”

This time the moment of silence was on Dean’s end, as his jaw clenched and he shook his head a little. But when he spoke, his voice was cheerful. “Sure, Sam. Bring whoever you want. I really oughta have a party for you, but the house is even more of a dung heap than usual.”

“That’s the truth!” yelled the guy sitting across the living room from Dean, loudly enough for Sam to hear.

Sam laughed. “Tell Andy I said hi. Eight o’clock, at the Wheel?”

“Sounds good. If you’re late I’ll know you’re saving a damsel in distress.”

Dean disconnected as Andy looked up from his textbook. “He bringing somebody else along again?”

“Yeah.”

“God, what’d you do, Dean? Molest the kid when he was young?”

Dean gave him the finger, but casually, as though he were too preoccupied to get into an insult war. “The weird thing is, we were really close when we were little. In a lot of ways, I raised him. But the last couple years, we get together, and we just don’t have much to say. It’s like anything I say pisses him off, and he doesn’t want to bother telling me what he’s doing, like I wouldn’t understand. I don’t know. Maybe it’s good that he brings other people along. Want to go?”

“Got a test tomorrow. And I kind of haven’t studied. At all. What’s ‘buying a broke’?”

“Sam’s under age, so when we get together I get beer and he gets Coke. I just abbreviate it by saying let’s get a broke.”

“He could have my ID. They might not look at the picture that close.”

“Nah, Sam’s a Boy Scout. I don’t think he’d use a phony ID if his life depended on it. Anyway, when I say under age, I mean sixteen. I’m not sure even I would want him drinking. And Dad would kill me.”

“Sixteen! What is he, a boy genius?”

“Not quite. Pretty close. He skipped a grade early on, and then he was so anxious to get to college he wrapped up high school in three and a half years and started here in January. Pre-law. He’ll prob’ly be on the Supreme Court by the time he’s thirty.”

Dean’s housemate grinned. “You’re not, like, proud of him or anything.”

Dean grinned back. “Maybe a little.”

Andy waved a hand. “He’ll come around. He’s sixteen, you helped raise him, he’s just rebelling against a parental authority figure.”

“What’d you do, Andy? Read a book?”

“I’m tryin’,” Andy said, slumping over his textbook again.

The Wheel was crowded and noisy on Fridays, but Dean still managed to snag one of the wooden booths covered with varnished-over graffiti. He sat on the side facing the door, watching one of the TVs overhead and listening to the music blaring even over the sounds of college weekend celebrants, and had a pitcher of beer and a pitcher of soda waiting when Sam walked in with his friend.

“I like your preparedness – man, I’m thirsty!” Sam said, dropping into the booth, sliding over, and reaching for the soda pitcher all at the same time. “Dean, this is Cas. Cas, this is my brother Dean.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Cas said formally. He was wearing jeans like almost everyone else in the bar, but topped with a navy blue V-neck sweater over a white button-down shirt open at the throat. Dean smothered a laugh as Cas sat down. “Hi, Cas. How do you know Sam?”

“We’re in the same scholarship hall.”

That could have been expected. Sam had been lucky enough to get a space in a scholarship hall at mid-year when another student had left – one of the older halls that more resembled a big boarding house than the modern halls. To get into a scholarship hall, which cost less than other campus housing, you had to meet certain financial and GPA requirements, as well as participating in the hall’s cooking and cleaning, and it helped if you had significant extracurricular activities. Sam looked more like a resident of Jayhawk Towers, where a lot of the student athletes lived; Cas utterly looked like a scholarship hall resident.

“Cas is the reason I was on campus the other night,” Sam said. “I had dinner-dishes duty, but I really wanted to spend some time at the library. Cas swapped nights with me.”

“Interesting,” Dean said. “Swap dish duty with a guy and a girl winds up being saved from MA15. Everything happens for a reason.”

“Of course, to say that, you also have to keep in mind the number of bad things that happen because of coincidence, too,” Cas said. He was pouring soda into a glass, carefully. “But even acknowledging that, I think you’re right, everything happens for a reason.”

Dean leaned back. “You know, I bet I’ve heard people say that a hundred times, and I don’t know if I ever thought of it like that. But you’re right. Like, say, a nurse is supposed to do an operation, the operation gets canceled, she leaves early and gets killed in a car wreck when she should’ve been safe in the OR. If good coincidences happen for a reason, something like that would too. Except whose crappy reason would that be?”

“The devil’s?” Sam asked, and took a drink of soda.

Cas shook his head. “That would imply that death is evil just by itself, instead of a stage of life we all reach sooner or later.”

“A stage that everyone tries to avoid,” Dean said.

“Just because we don’t know what lies beyond it.”

“I dunno. You ask the nurse’s family, I bet they’d say it was evil.”

He took a drink of beer, noticed Sam looking at him with a grin. “What?”

“Nothin.’ You put up a good fight.”

“Well, speaking of – ” Dean lifted his beer glass. “Here’s to Sam!”

Dean and Cas clinked glasses, Cas saying, “Hear hear!,” then drank. Sam looked pleased, if embarrassed.

“Were you able to give the police any kind of description?”

“Only height and weight, just estimates. He was wearing a ski mask.”

“They oughta ban the sale of those things unless you’re buying skis.”

Cas chuckled, and Dean looked pleased.

“So how are things?” Sam asked.

“Pretty good.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“How about you? Outside of the hero thing?”

“Pretty good.”

Another moment. Cas took a drink of soda, looking back and forth between the brothers.

“Did you ever call the girl? See how she’s doing?”

“I don’t know her name. She was too shaken up to tell me anything but her first name, and when the police got there they talked to us separately.”

“Too bad. Great way to impress a girl.”

“Dean.”

“Hey, I’m just sayin.’ A girl might think it was a romantic way to meet.”

“Don’t think she did, Dean. As a matter of fact, my guess is that seeing me would just remind her of what almost happened to her.”

“Well, yeah. I suppose so.”

Sam took another drink, then said in the tone of one admitting something reluctantly, “She was really pretty, though. And I did tell her my full name, so if she wants to find me on Facebook – ”

“That’s my bro!” Dean took a sip of beer. “You have any brothers or sisters, Cas?”

“I have three older brothers, an older sister, and a younger sister.”

“Wow.” Dean looked at Sam. “See, it coulda been worse. You could’ve had three older brothers.”

“I’m not complaining. You went to my games and talked me down from my junior prom nerves.”

Dean’s face got tense. “Sam – ”

Sam held up his hands. “That’s a compliment to you. Not a swing at Dad.”

Another moment of silence.

Sam’s mouth quirked. “How’s the car coming along?”

“Comin’ along great. Having a hard time finding a carburetor, though.”

“You’re restoring a car?” Cas asked.

“Well,” Sam said with vast quiet amusement, “it kind of depends on how you define ‘car.’ If you define it as an object that actually moves from point A to point B – ”

With a tolerant smile, Dean flipped him off.

“See, our dad for years nursed along this pathetic rust bucket – ”

“Nineteen-sixty-seven Chevy Impala, one of the sweetest rides ever created.”

“You know, I think he kept it because of memories associated with our mom. But a few years ago it got to the point where even he couldn’t keep it going, you know, he really needed a dependable car. But he couldn’t bear to get rid of it, so for years it sat moldering in the garage.”

“It’s not moldy.”

“Meanwhile, in high school Dean bought a rust bucket that was almost as pathetic and used it as transportation while he fixed it up. Year before last, he sold it at a profit. Dad tells Dean, let’s go down to Rainbow Motors, I’ll buy you a used car for your birthday if you’ll keep up the maintenance and insurance. Dean says he really wants the Impala.”

“So after Dad recovered from his heart attack – ”

“Actually,” Sam dropped his ribbing tone, “I think Dad was thrilled. I think he knew it was a little obsessive to keep a non-working car in the garage forever, but he just couldn’t bear to let a scrap dealer or someone like that get it. We towed it up here and Dean’s been working on it ever since, and I think Dad will be ecstatic if Dean can get it back to any level of functionality.”

“Any level? That sweetheart’s going to blow everything off the road.”

Sam went back to younger-brother mode. “Yeah? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Believe it now, Sammy.”

“I do,” Cas said, and they both looked at him, a little surprised. “People who have a passion achieve goals that other people thought were impossible.”

Dean smiled triumphantly, looked at Sam and pointed to Cas. “What he said.”

“Mm,” Sam said with a mouthful of soda, then swallowed. “You remember the American History class I told you about?”

“The one with the great teacher?”

“Right. We started on the opening of the West today. Completely fascinating, and not just the history, the – the psychology. Did you ever have a teacher who – you felt like you weren’t just learning the subject, you were opening up your mind?”

“Miss Braeden, senior year,” Dean said promptly.

Sam looked tired. “Dean – ”

“What? This isn’t a horny high-schooler story.” With a sudden grin, Dean looked at Cas. “Although if you were gonna tell a horny high-schooler story, Miss Braeden would’ve been worthy. Nice firm bod, and she wore a lot of that clingy knit stuff.” He shot a look over at Sam, who was staring fixedly at an overhead TV, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, she convinced me that creative writing, writing to express yourself, wasn’t just a girly thing. You can really explain stuff to people, explain it to yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s – ” Sam began.

“You ever have a teacher like that, Cas?” Dean asked.

“Last semester I took an acting class,” Cas said. “I thought it was a stupid thing to do at the time, but the way the teacher approached it, it helped me learn some things about myself. Not be so afraid of emotions.”

“Why’d you take it if you thought it was a stupid idea?”

“Oh. Someone else was taking it, said it would be fun if we were in the same class.”

Cas’ voice and face were melancholy. Dean shot a glance at Sam, who nodded very slightly.

“Well,” Dean didn’t miss a beat, “that’s the good thing about taking different kinds of classes. You never know what’s actually going to turn out to be interesting.”

Sam was looking at one of the TV screens overhead. “Royals suck this year.”

“That’s to counterbalance the Chiefs sucking less last year,” Dean said.

Sam laughed. “’Scuse me, Cas.”

Cas rose to let Sam out, then sat back down opposite Dean, who cleared his throat. 

“So have you decided on a major, Cas?”

Cas smiled a little. “Hope so. I’m a junior. Religious studies.”

“What are you gonna do with it? – I know, everyone asks you that.”

“Teach, probably. Maybe do further study in languages and translate. But I’d like to be one of those teachers we were talking about just now. I find discussions of – of the big questions, fascinating.”

“Yeah, I could see that about you,” Dean said with a smile as their eyes met. 

There was a quiet moment somehow very different from the Winchesters’ silences.

“Well, as a fellow junior, I’m sorry I mistook you for a freshman,” Dean said. “I figured – you’re a friend of Sam’s, and you’re not drinking – ”

“I like a beer sometimes. Just thought I should take it easy tonight. I didn’t want to get maudlin.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, Sam didn’t tell me much, just that you’re going through something.”

Cas nodded. “He’s a good guy.”

“True.” Dean took a long drink of beer. “I’ve been there. What you need is to get back on the horse. I could line us up with a couple of girls, we could go out. No big deal, you know, just have some fun.”

Cas cocked his head slightly and gave Dean a searching gaze for a moment.

Then, “Well, I’m gay, Dean. So you wouldn’t really need to line me up with a girl. But I could probably get a date and we could double-date. Or the two of us could hang out together. If you wanted to.”

Dean gave an explosive laugh, raising his hands. “No, no. Not my thing. No insult. Just not my thing. But, you know, I hope things work out for you. With a girl or a guy. Either way. Whatever.”

“Thanks,” Cas said, somehow managing to get a desert’s worth of dryness into the syllable.

When Sam got back to the table, Dean engaged him in a vigorous discussion of sports. Cas contributed quietly, poured himself another soda, his eyes on the TV.

When Sam and Cas got back to the scholarship hall, a slender blonde girl, her hair shining under the porch light, was sitting on one of the chairs scattered around the veranda waiting for them. Sam’s step hesitated, then resumed when Cas recognized her.

“Rachel?” Cas asked, taking the two stairs quickly. “Are you all right?”

Rachel looked at him a little disgustedly. “Yeah, Cas, I’m fine. Considering, you know, that my brother’s all miserable.”

“Oh.” Cas sounded a little abashed. “Sam, this is my younger sister, Rachel. Rachel, this is Sam. He dragged me out and forced me to have a good time tonight.”

“Dragged you out? Where?”

“Does my baby sister need to protect me from dens of iniquity?”

“No, I didn’t mean – I just – Sorry.” Rachel looked up apologetically at Sam. “I’m no fun.”

Sam laughed. “Well, it’s never too late to start. I’m gonna turn in, Cas. Take it easy.”

“You too.”

Cas pulled a chair over beside his sister and sat down. “It’s nice of you to come by. Sorry I wasn’t here.”

“No, I should’ve called to check. It was just – the way you sounded on the phone last night, I figured you’d be sitting here staring at the wall.”

“I know. You shouldn’t have to put up with my whining.”

“You didn’t whine. But I really do wonder how often you’re going to let jerks use you before you learn.”

“Lucian was not – ”

“I met him twice, Cas, remember? The first time he acted all depressed, just to keep getting your attention. And when we were watching the Super Bowl over here? He was flirting with other guys and guys’ dates, just to make you jealous.”

“Lucian is desperately insecure. His background is – ”

“You can’t save someone from their background single-handed, Castiel. They have to be working at it too.”

“He had a very hard time believing that anyone could love him.”

“Yeah, and Uriel? You tried to save him too, and Zack. Just a big bunch of using – users.”

“Using users?” Castiel said with a small smile.

Rachel stamped her foot. “Don’t make me laugh! I’m being indignant!”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Seriously, Cas, can’t you just try going out sometime with someone you don’t need to save? I’m not saying fall wildly in love with him, but couldn’t you go out with someone just to, you know, have a good time?”

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Hey! I have a good time.”

“Rachel, when was the last time you went out on a date? Never mind that, when was the last time you went to a concert that wasn’t a benefit for a cause? Never mind that, when was the last time you just went shopping with a bunch of other girls?”

“Shopping?”

She sounded as if her brother had just suggested setting herself on fire. Castiel laughed outright, and she looked a little embarrassed.

“It’s like you resist having a good time. With Sam just now – you meet a good-looking guy in your own class, the first thing you tell him is, ‘I’m no fun.’”

“Oh, would he even be interested?”

Cas nodded. “Very straight. He’s a friend who hauled me out of the house when I was feeling down.”

“Well, good. You should have a friend like that.”

“Do you?”

“Mm. Well, Andrea went to K-State.”

“We’re in the second semester, Rachel. Haven’t you met anyone at the dorm who could be a friend?”

“Well, they’re all – I know some – ” She slumped a little. “I’m pathetic.”

“I’ve wondered sometimes about us – all of us, I mean. Mom and Dad have a good marriage and a lot of friends, and all their kids are hyper-serious loners.”

“Hey, Michael has a solid marriage! And that’s not easy to do when the Marines are hauling you all over the globe.”

“True.”

“And Raphael – yeah, he needs to find someone as intense as he is. Gabriel’s not – well – yeah, he’s a loner, but he’s not serious. And Anna could – if she’d just – My God, you’re right.”

“I blame Dad’s genetics. Mom’s intense, but she has a sense of humor too. I think Dad married her because she was the first person who ever tried to make him laugh.”

“That’d make sense if Raphael weren’t adopted.”

“Oh. Yes.”

Rachel straightened, looked at Cas intently. “OK. Wherever the pattern comes from, we’re going to break it.”

Cas imitated her tone. “OK. How?”

“We’re going to have a contest. You and me,” she said seriously. “Who can have the most fun.”

“Uh – that’s pretty hard to quantify.”

“We’ll do it by points. Going on a date – a fun date – let’s say that’s five points. Going out with a friend, that’s like three.”

“I think that should be worth more.”

“It’s harder to get a date.”

Cas crinkled his nose. “Not for you, Rachel. Trust me. Once you start trying, it’ll be easy for you to get dates. Going out with friends should be four points.”

“Oh, all right. Watching a whole movie that’s a comedy, even if you’re by yourself, one point.”

“Buying something fun, just because you want it and not need it, one point.”

“Oh! Could that even be something inexpensive? Like bubble bath?”

“Sure. It should only be inexpensive stuff, really. And we can only do that, like, twice.”

“Oh! I just thought of something.” Rachel’s eyes were sparkling. “If I have the guts to do it, it’ll be worth an easy seven points.”

Castiel sounded suddenly nervous. “It goes without saying that neither of us should let our grade point average drop.”

Rachel gave him another disgusted look

“Yes. I’m sorry. I can’t help but feel responsible for you.”

“You just be responsible for you, Castiel. Have a good time with some nice people who aren’t soul-sucking vampires.”

“That’s a good phrase.”

“Thanks. I’ll call you a week from Sunday to tally our points. Then each week after that until the Sunday after our last final. The one with the most points wins.”

“Wins what?”

“Oh, we’ll work that out as we go along. Anyway, for sure the title of Novak Family Pattern Breaker.”

He smiled, and she cocked her head, studying him. “Are you really OK?”

“I will be. Thanks, Rachel. I appreciate your – Well, I appreciate you.”

“Me too.” She pressed a hand to his arm, then stood. “I’ve got a chapter to read yet, so I’m going now.”

He stood as well. “I’ll walk you to the bus stop.”

“You don’t need – Well, maybe it’s not a bad idea.”

She bounded off the porch and did two perfect cartwheels, her long legs and arms in perfect symmetry, landing on the sidewalk under the streetlight. “One point.”

“Great. Already I’m behind.” But Cas was smiling his small curved smile as he caught up to Rachel.

As he did, Sam was sitting on his bed, holding a piece of paper by one corner, talking on his cell phone.

“Detective Henriksen? This is Sam Winchester, I don’t know if you remember – yeah, thanks. Um, sorry to call so late, I mean, I guess you were there anyway. But I just got back to the hall and looked in my mailbox, and there was this envelope. No return address, and there was a piece of paper inside with – you know the article the UDK ran? Well, someone clipped a couple of paragraphs out, the part about me, and glued it to a piece of paper. And underneath there’s printed, ‘I Know Where You Live.’ I mean, I figure it’s just some jerk’s idea of a joke, but I thought I should let you know.

“No, it’s like a computer printer. – The postmark’s Lawrence.

“Sure, I’ll be glad to. But I really think it’s just some asshole’s idea of humor. Don’t you?

“Yeah, exactly. Exactly. OK. I’ll see you then.”

He disconnected the call. He laid the sheet of paper gingerly on top of the envelope already on his desk, seeming unable to take his eyes from it.

.

“You testin’ it or makin’ love to it?”

Dean looked as if he couldn’t figure out why a human voice was coming out of the engine of the car he was working on and suddenly realized his boss was standing there. He let up on the throttle control with which he’d been revving the engine. “What?”

“I said, you testin’ it or makin’ love to it?” Bobby Singer repeated.

“Sorry,” Dean said a little sheepishly, disengaging the throttle control. “The alternator’s fine.” 

Bobby cocked a dubious eye at him. “You’ve been a little preoccupied today.”

“Yeah, I know. The car’s fine, I’m sure.”

“Everything’s OK, isn’t it? You doin’ all right?”

“Yeah, I’m – As a matter – Nah, nothing.”

“OK . . .” Bobby said with a rising inflection, clearly expecting more of an explanation.

Dean shrugged with a grin, not meeting Bobby’s eyes. “You know, I met someone. It’s kind of all I’ve been able to think about.”

Bobby glanced into the front office and out across the drive of Singer’s Auto Repair, but at the moment he wasn’t needed, so he leaned back against a storage cabinet that doubled as a work counter, arms folded, with an anticipatory smile. “Well, tell me about her.”

“Oh, nah – You know – not that much to tell.”

Bobby raised his eyebrows and let out a long quiet whistle.

“What’s that mean?” Dean asked a little sharply.

“You must be serious about her. Usually you tell me every detail of what your girls are like, practically down to bra size. And with this one, there’s not that much to tell?”

“Well, no. We haven’t gone out. We just met. I just – ” Dean shrugged, focused on polishing a minuscule spot off the windshield – “You know how, with some people, you kinda get a feeling?”

“I do.”

Dean tossed the chamois onto the work bench. “So, I’ll run it through the wash. You want to call Professor Visyak?”

“You gonna ask her out?”

“Eleanor Visyak? She’s like fifty, and kinda scary.”

“Ha ha,” Bobby said dryly. “The girl. You gonna ask her out?”

“Really don’t want to discuss my personal life, Bobby.”

“Since when? I never get to meet one of these gals, least you can do is tell me the stories.”

“You’re a dirty old man, Bobby. Hey. Where’s Bill?”

“Gave notice a couple weeks ago. Moved to Denver.”

“Oh, man. He was good.”

“He was.” Bobby stood up straight, uncrossed his arms. “It means I’ve got a full-time opening. It’s yours if you want it.”

Dean gave a very short sigh of regret. “Oh, Bobby, don’t tempt me.”

“I’m offering you a job you’re good at. And you like it. I don’t see where that’s a temptation to sin.”

“No way I’d be able to keep up my GPA if I was working full time. I’ve got chem and paleontology this semester.”

“Well, yeah, I can understand that.”

“It’s really important to Dad that Sam and I get college degrees. I don’t think it matters too much what we do afterward, but he thinks it’s important for us to have that – credential.”

“Is it important to you?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Bobby looked startled. “What you want doesn’t matter?”

“Well, I didn’t mean – Well – Actually, no. Dad told me once that he and Mom had a deal. She worked the first couple years of their marriage so he could get a degree, because that can help open doors for promotions on the force. Then they had us, and when we got older Mom was going to go back to school and finish her degree.” He shrugged a little. “Dad blames himself for a lot of things. He doesn’t say it, but he does. One of ’em is that Mom never got a chance to get her degree. So it’s important to him that – besides knowing that it would have been important to Mom – it’s important to him that Sam and I get ours. And of course Sam – ” Dean grinned – “Academic Boy from day one. If Dad tried to keep him from going to college, he couldn’t’ve. And for me, well, y’know, it’s only another year and a half, maybe another year if I concentrate. And geology’s actually interesting.”

“I know. I’m a member of the Douglas County Rockhounds.”

“I never knew that.”

“I have hidden depths. It does make sense to get your degree, Dean. As long as you’re not planning to live your whole life for your dad.”

“I just don’t want to disappoint him. And I’m a disappointment in a lot of other ways.”

Bobby looked at Dean as if Dean had just grown a second nose. “I don’t see how.”

“I just – Believe me, Bobby. And I’ve got a lot of – I’m thinking – ”

He leaned on the car, dropped his head sharply, and seemed for a moment to be so overcome by something that Bobby took a step forward, with a concerned look.

Then Dean raised his head, face calm. “Yeah. Disappointment. Just trust me.”

Bobby looked dubious, but Dean jumped into Professor Visyak’s car and started it up, so Bobby went to the office to call her.

Saturday night. Even with the windows closed, the sound of cars roaring with freedom came into Cas’ suite. As he sat at the desk in front of the window in the suite’s common room, he saw Ash meeting a girl from a neighboring scholarship hall on the sidewalk out front. She laughed at something he said.

Cas stared out the window for a moment, his hands clasped in front of his chin.

Then he shook his head and smiled a bit. “One point,” he said and spun in his chair.

The he started at the sight of the man filling his open doorway.

“Oh. Sorry. I was just going to knock,” Dean said.

“It’s, no, that’s all right. Startled me a little. I don’t know where Sam is, I’m afraid.”

“I, no, I wanted to see, I wanted to ask you a question,” Dean said. “The guy down in front – I don’t know if he’s really the best guy to have at the front desk, by the way. He told me where your room is and then yelled after me, ‘Don’t steal anything!’”

Cas laughed. “That would be Chuck. No, he’s not exactly a German shepherd. Have a seat.”

The two tiny bedrooms of the suite were on either side of the common room. Besides the study desk and chair where Cas sat, the common room’s furnishings included a thrift-store upholstered chair, another study chair, a low set of bookshelves with a TV on top, and a collapsible card table holding a game of Risk.

Dean moved a newspaper and two textbooks to the top of the TV and sat in the upholstered chair facing Cas. “Sorry to interrupt your Saturday night.”

“I had no plans. I was just going to look for a movie. A comedy. It’d be worth one point.”

“Uh – ” 

“My sister and I are having a contest to see who can have the most fun,” Cas said in his usual sober manner.

Dean’s face remained straight, but it looked like it was costing him some effort to keep it that way. “Who, um, who’s winning?”

“I’m quite sure she is,” Cas said dryly.

“I would slaughter Sammy if we had a contest like that. At least, I think I would, but he’d probably think that his weird ideas of fun should count.”

Cas smiled and nodded, and there was a moment’s quiet.

“OK. So. The reason I came,” Dean said.

He swallowed, cleared his throat. Then he stood, turned to close the door, sat back down. As he did this, an understanding smile crossed Cas’ face and disappeared.

“Last night,” Dean said. “Last night. You said, I mean, when you said – ”

He swore. He was leaning forward, hands clutched together between his knees, knuckles white, seemingly unaware of how close he and Cas were. He shook his head again.

“Sorry, man. Last night, when you said you were gay. It came out so easy, like, you know, like, ‘I have ten fingers.’ How – When – How did you – ”

“When did I come out?”

“Yeah, and, and how did – when did you get so you could just say it? Without – ” He waved vaguely as if to sum up the last two minutes.

“I never really – You know what I think it was, I said it to myself first. Literally stood in this room two years ago and said out loud to myself, ‘I’m not going through a phase, I’m not rebelling against anything, I’m not unnatural. I’m gay, and for me, that’s natural.’ Of course, that was after years of fighting with myself and telling myself all those other things. Once I said it to myself, just as a simple statement of fact, it was – well, less of a struggle, anyway, to tell other people.”

“Even your dad?”

“That was a tough one. And you know, my parents are very open-minded people, it wasn’t nearly as hard for me as it would’ve been for some. But it was tough anyway. You spend a couple of moments watching their ideas of you readjust in their minds, and you hold your breath. But you know, most of the gay people I know, their parents handled it pretty well. Not all, but most.”

“How about their friends?”

“Well, a lot of mine kind of suspected it already, so it wasn’t that big of a shock to them.”

“Yeah, see, that’s – I keep telling myself, there’s no way. You know, none of my friends are, none of my friends like the stuff – I mean, we like sports, you know. Working on cars. I just don’t know if I could change. You know, I just don’t like the stuff gay guys like.”

Cas head lifted and his eyes narrowed. “Come on, Dean,” he snapped in a harder tone than one would have thought he could assume. “I’ve met you, Sam’s told me about you. You’re not that stupid. There are all different kinds of gay men, they like all different kinds of things. Don’t give me that crap.”

Dean hunched over a little more, his eyes on the ground, the picture of misery. “Yeah, I know. Theoretically. It just seems like most – Well, it’s what Dad thinks, let’s face it. I mean, he doesn’t hate gays. He just thinks they’re all swishy. That they’re all –

“Mom died when Sam was a baby, you know. Dad – changed. He kind of pulled inside himself, sank into his work, never – Well, it’s hard to get him to come back out again. Sometimes it happens, if we’re watching a ball game together or I ask him about one of his cases. He’s a cop, you know. We pretty much grew up in Lawrence, but Dad got a job in Wichita last year and moved there with Sam. And Sam just doesn’t know how to – They love each other, but Sam just gets pissed at Dad for being so remote. He doesn’t get that Dad’s constantly dealing with grieving people, he’s reminded every day what that’s like, and he needs to be pulled out of it. It’s not that hard, you ask him about a problem or something. Sam thinks I’m just sucking up to him for attention, but – He’s my dad, you know? He’s my only parent. And I can’t bear to think what happens if I’m gay. If I tell him I’m gay. If I don’t tell him it’s like I’m lying to him all the time, and if I tell him he loses respect for me, and I feel like I’m in Hell.”

His gaze still down, his posture still hunched, Dean drew a shuddering breath.

Cas put his right hand on Dean’s upper arm. It was just a touch, but Dean wasn’t expecting it, and he jumped as though he’d been burned.

Cas kept his hand there, though, looking into Dean’s eyes. “It’ll be OK,” he said. “It will. Maybe not at first. But I think he’ll come around. ’Cause I have a hard time believing that a completely unreachable jerk is the father of both you and Sam.”

Dean’s muscles relaxed visibly, and he exhaled deeply. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. That’s not Dad. Yeah, it’ll be tough. But you’re right, it won’t be permanent. I’ve gotta remember that.”

Cas released him, and they both sat back a little.

“You knew, didn’t you? Last night? You probably knew all along.”

Cas shook his head. “It just seemed like there was something odd when you offered to find me a girl. Then when you spent twenty minutes denying you were gay, I was pretty sure.”

“Dude, it was not twenty minutes! Gimme a break.”

Cas smiled. Dean’s eyes shifted away, and back. “So. Say it to myself first.”

Cas shrugged. “Anyway, it worked for me.”

“OK. I’m goin’ home.” Dean stood, turned to the door, turned back. “While I’ve got some guts – You want to get together sometime?”

Cas hesitated. “It’s nothing about you, I just don’t feel like, you know, like trying for another serious relationship right now. But if we could just get together as friends, yeah, I’d like that.”

Dean gave him a slow smile, and Cas suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights. But all Dean said, as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, was, “Sure. Friends is good. What’s your number?”

Cas gave it to him. Dean recorded it in the phone, then looked up. “Thanks. Again.”

“Hope I helped,” Cas said.

Dean nodded, opened the door, and left.

“Excuse me – Professor?”

The spare man of about 40 with piercing eyes looked up from his briefcase at Sam, who had rested his backpack on the teacher’s desk and placed his doubled hands on top of it, as though determinedly facing an opponent.

“Just call me Arnie. All your fellow students do, you must have noticed. Did you have a question?”

“Well, a, a comment more. I mean, I should tell you that I think this is a great class. It’s easily my favorite. And that’s, a lot of that is because of your teaching. That’s why it – I wasn’t really expecting your attitude today, when you called Native Americans losers.”

Arnie raised his eyebrows. “Did they not? Lose?”

“Well, yeah, but ‘losers’ makes it sound like it was their fault.”

“Perhaps I did forget how pejorative the word can sound. But tell me, if it wasn’t their fault, whose fault was it?”

“Well, the Europeans’. They had guns, they brought diseases the Indians didn’t have defenses for, they wanted – ”

“Why did they have guns?”

“What?”

“Why did the Europeans have guns? The Chinese invented gunpowder, didn’t they?”

“Well, the Europeans got it from the Mongols.”

“Exactly. Why didn’t the Native Americans get guns from the Europeans?”

“Well, they did, on a small scale, but the Europeans were really reluctant to sell later on, you know, what with being busy trying to take their land away.”

“Still, the natives had access to guns. Why didn’t they study them and start making their own?”

Sam looked stumped for a moment. Then, “Because they didn’t have that kind of society. To make guns on any massive scale, you need manufacturers, supply lines, organized distribution. Towns. The natives were nomadic, rural. They didn’t – ”

“They weren’t able to adapt to meet the oncoming threat, even after the threat had been on their land for a couple of hundred years. Mind you, I’m not saying they were incapable of defending themselves. That’s the only thing George Armstrong Custer proved in his life. I’m saying that they lacked the thing that makes it possible for a civilization to survive and develop.”

“Which is?”

The professor looked at his watch. “I have to be in another class two floors down in three minutes. You’re – Winchester, Sam. Aren’t you?”

Sam grinned, imagining how often Arnie had seen students’ names written like that. “Yep.”

“Your written work is excellent, and you’re always engaged in class. Why do you sit at the back?”

“Oh, that has nothing to do with the class. It’s just, I’m tall, and I don’t want to block everyone else’s view.”

Arnie’s mouth crinkled again. “I’ll tell you what. You sit in the front of the class, and let those who are less interested worry about finding a spot with a better view. I like a good argument, Sam. Would you like to come over to my house for dinner tonight, and we can continue this discussion?”

“Well – ”

“My daughter will be there,” Arnie said, as though understanding Sam’s hesitation. “She’s about your age, so she’ll be better company for you if I start sounding like a fossil. And I’m pretty sure the food will be better than whatever your housemates defrost.”

Sam chuckled. “Actually, I live in a scholarship hall.”

“A step up, but still not – shall we say – a nice broiled filet?”

“Sounds great.”

Arnie wrote his address on a Post-It Note, handed it to Sam, tossed the pad back in the briefcase and snapped it shut. “Will 6:30 work for you?”

“Absolutely. Looking forward to it.”

“And I too,” Arnie said, leading him out of the classroom. “It’s so rare that a student actually hears what a teacher says. Maybe that why I used the word ‘losers.’ I must admit the temptation is strong sometimes to walk in and begin saying outrageous things, just to see if I can get some reaction beyond note-scribbling and clock-watching.”

“Well, you know you’ll get it from me.”

“Indeed. I’ll see you at 6:30.”

Arnie’s home was in one of the small Victorian houses for which Lawrence is modestly famous. Sam had changed his shirt, shed the backpack, and combed his hair, and now he stood on a small but elegant portico and used the polished brass door knocker.

No response. He rang the bell.

The door was yanked open by a young woman with short blonde hair streaked in exotic colors, sharp-eyed and sharp-chinned, whose excellent figure was in no way downplayed by her clothes – a black blouse with a deep-cut sweetheart neckline and skin-tight black jeans.

Sam, who’d been expecting a rather formal male associate professor, stared.

“Sam?” she said in a tone implying, “God, on top of all the other hassle, I have to remind you of your own name?”

Sam came to. “Yes. Hi. You must be Arnie’s daughter.”

“Yeah. I’m Rita.” She jerked her head toward the inside of the house, and when he walked in she shut the door sharply behind him and walked away without another word.

Sam followed her, in part because he didn’t know what else to do, in part because of male instinct.

She led him into a tiny but well lit and well decorated dining room. Another doorway obviously led into the kitchen; a granite counter-top with a professional-looking knife block could be seen, and warm smells drifted across the dining room.

Arnie was doing the cooking, a little to Sam’s surprise, a long chef’s apron tied over his shirt and tie. In a tone indicating that he was fully aware of the way Rita was acting, Arnie told her to get their guest a drink. She put Sam’s requested glass of ice water in front of him without looking at him, put a cola down at her own place, and sank into her chair as she busied herself with an iPhone.

Fortunately, Arnie was only a few minutes in the kitchen, bringing out plates loaded with the promised filets, scalloped potatoes with cheese and asparagus.

“Sorry,” Sam said a few minutes later. “I’m eating like a hog, but this is really good.”

“It’s hard to develop manners when no one else in society uses them,” Arnie said. “I appreciate the compliment.”

Sam blotted his mouth with a napkin and sat up straighter. “You were going to tell me the thing that makes it possible for a civilization to develop.”

“Yes, your concern for Native Americans. Well, let’s reverse the question. What made it possible for white settlers to drive out tribes who had inhabited the land for thousands of years?”

“Superior technology. Superior numbers.”

“The superior numbers were only because the superior technology made it worth the risk of settling. If you’d suggested moving into Indian country without at least two good rifles and a stockpile of ammunition, a frontiersman would have said he’d stay back East until he had the weaponry.”

“True.” Sam was cutting his filet with one eye on Arnie’s careful, precise slicing. “So the question is, why the superior technology?”

“The superior technology existed because there was a demand for it. Was there a demand for technology allowing people to live comfortably in smaller spaces? Was there a demand for technology that would allow the bulk of the population to make their living in some way other than farming?”

“Well – ” Sam looked a little confused.

“Of course such technology existed. Cobblers had their tools, doctors had their medications – such as they were. But for the mass of people, those who could never hope to be bankers or inherit money from a rich father, the sign of success was owning your own land. What technology allowed you to take and keep your own land? Firearms and farming implements. The demand was enormous.”

“OK . . . ”

“Now. Why did the demand exist? Why was owning land considered the sign of success, enough to drive people into utterly unknown and dangerous regions for it?”

Sam gave a little smile. “Uh – because the Europeans were greedheads?”

“What’s your major, Sam?”

Sam looked a little startled. “Well, history. But I’m pre-law.”

“Ah. Well, in the study of history, and particularly in the practice of law, you must try to refrain from casting moral judgments. It’s a lazy way of thinking.” He flashed a smile. “I see you disagree with me, but that’s a different argument for a different dinner. For now, let me just propose this: The mass of people felt that land equaled success because the people who influenced their thought believed that land equaled success.”

“Southern plantation owners,” Sam said. “Tobacco exhausted the ground’s nutrients fast, so they burned through land like – like there was more being manufactured somewhere. They always needed more.”

“Very good, Sam. Do any influential plantation owners spring to mind?”

“Sure. Washington.”

“Jefferson,” Rita piped up unexpectedly, and her father shot her a surprised glance. “He bought like a third of the country in one swoop.”

“And plantation owners weren’t the only ones who considered land vital,” Arnie continued. “John Adams was a superb lawyer, but he’d have considered himself a second-class citizen without his Braintree farm. These and a few others were the decisive spirits, the exceptional ones of their time. Because of them, the masses were willing to fight the most powerful army on Earth. Because of them, the masses felt that literacy and participation in their society were important. And because of them, the masses believed that land ownership was so important that they were willing to arm themselves and disappear into hostile territory, conquering the continent one farmstead at a time.”

Sam looked dubious. “So – you think that because of the Founding Fathers – ”

“Who did the natives have who were equivalent?”

“Well – really, not much of anyone had a group equivalent to those guys.”

“A splendidly chauvinistic sentiment, Sam. As it happens, though, close to correct. And certainly Native Americans had no one similar. They had excellent warriors, some could even qualify as fine military leaders. But to counter the exceptionalism that founded the country – whose effects were felt well into the nineteenth century – they’d have needed a leader who could galvanize them into unifying the tribes, taking ownership of the land instead of simply expecting it to be there when they rode across it a few times a year, changing their way of life, and battling the Europeans exclusively instead of in the intervals of battling each other. That leader did not exist.”

“Or he just wasn’t listened to,” Sam said.

“Exceptional people, the makers of history, don’t waste time trying to persuade. The decisive spirit knows what he wants, disciplines himself to obtain it, demands much of himself and of others. The masses recognize exceptional people who make history. Actually – ” he smiled at Sam – “they recognize each other.”

Sam gave a half-smile back to him, reached for his water glass, and knocked it over.

“Crud!” he exclaimed, and both he and the teacher started blotting the table with their napkins at the same moment. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s not a problem. You’d drunk most of it anyway.”

“I’ll get you some more,” Rita said, taking Sam’s glass away.

“Well, that’s quite enough of my lecturing,” Arnie said, tossing his napkin to one side. “Tell me about yourself, Sam.”

“Not much to tell, really. I grew up in Lawrence, so starting at KU was like coming home to me. My dad lives in Wichita now. My brother Dean was already a student here when we moved, so he just goes to Wichita in the summer now.”

“Your mother left?”

“Died. Years ago, so I never really knew her. Um – well, that’s about it. I’m so happy to be here, conversations like this are one of the reasons why. I graduated high school early just especially to get out on my own, get into college, get started on a law degree.”

Rita put Sam’s water glass down in front of him as Arnie shot her a look that clearly said, Here’s an example to follow. “So you’re seventeen?”

“Well, I’ll be seventeen in a month.”

Arnie raised his eyebrows. “Focused and bright. Where do you see yourself in ten years, Sam?”

“Well – criminal law might be what everyone thinks of, and I’m going to consider it, but at the same time – Is it stupid if I say I’m interested in corporate law? I mean, the different structures of businesses, lawsuits, patents and copyrights – it just seems like you could be involved with a variety of things. Plus, if you have a regular paycheck and more or less regular hours, you can do pro bono stuff for poor people who need help, and you can spend some time with your family. I mean – ” Sam caught himself up suddenly, with a bashful smile – “assuming I have one. I’d like to get married if I meet the right girl, have a couple of kids.”

Arnie just blinked. Sam laughed. “I know. Come find me in ten years, I’ll probably be a single clerk at Walmart.”

“I doubt it very much, Sam,” Arnie said levelly.

“Did you always know that you wanted to be a teacher?” Sam asked.

“I considered other options,” Arnie said thoughtfully, “but in the end the desire to communicate ideas won out. There was a certain youthful naivete there, of course. But still, the occasional student who absorbs, who responds, makes it worth the students who can’t be reached and the more tiresome faculty requirements.”

“Oh, don’t let him kid you,” Rita said, her elbow on the table and her face in her hand, grinning at her father. “He’s so looking forward to the Capital City Conference.”

Her father closed his eyes in a long-suffering manner, and Rita laughed.

“Is that why you won’t be in class on Friday?” Sam asked.

“Yes. Our department head is one of the organizers, so, as a matter of faculty politics, it’s good for me to go. In my opinion, though, it’s almost useless. The organizers select speakers who cater to the idea that professors should be students’ helpful – buddies, that this somehow facilitates learning.”

“You don’t think it does, obviously.”

“Young people who are capable of learning at an advanced level need instructors, perhaps advisors. For them, respect facilitates learning. For young people who are incapable of such learning, trying to be a friend simply induces disrespect – both for the professor and the process.” Arnie shrugged. “In my opinion.”

“Do you ever just tell ’em that?”

Arnie smiled briefly. “Faculty politics are another thing I didn’t entirely anticipate in my youth. I’m sure there are aspects of law you’ll find tiring. The important thing is to focus on what you find enjoyable.”

“Speaking of politics,” Sam said, “I mean national politics now, I was wondering. Someone where I live was saying the other day that we need a third party in America. What do you think about the two-party system? I mean, you know the history of it.”

They discussed that and other topics, eventually moving to the living room for coffee. Sam offered to help clear the dishes, Arnie declined, and then Sam said he had to leave to get started on the reading his slave-driving history professor had assigned.

“Would you like a ride home? I could take you, or Rita could.”

“No, thanks. You don’t live that far away, and I like walking.”

“That’s good. I enjoyed our discussion, Sam. Shall we repeat, say in a couple of weeks? You both listen well and express yourself well. It’s a rare combination.”

“Oh. Thanks. Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll come and cast moral judgments all over everything.”

Arnie chuckled. “Yes, we must discuss that. You have a good evening, Sam.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Rita said.

When the two of them were on the front porch, Rita closed the front door and turned to Sam. “Sorry I was so pissy earlier. Dad was going on about this bright motivated guy he’d invited over, and I thought he was setting us up.”

Sam laughed outright, allowing himself to look her over quickly. “I can’t see why he’d think that you need him to get dates.”

“Oh, he knows I can get dates. He wants to marry me off, and he hates my taste in guys.”

“I – Well, obviously I don’t know you guys that well, but I doubt that, Rita. For sure he knows he can’t get you married off to a guy you don’t like.”

Rita slanted a smiling gaze up at him. “Maybe he’s hoping that if he brings over an exceptional spirit who’s good looking enough,” she moved close to him, “you’ll rub off on me.”

Sam leaned toward her as if he were unaware that he was doing it. “I think he just likes a good argument, Rita. That’s all.”

“You do? I think you’re the kid he wishes he had.”

“No.”

“Yeah. I dropped out of college last year. I wait tables at Jefferson’s. I moved back in with him ’cause it’s, you know, free. Not exactly an exceptional being. Except I will say this. I usually do get what I want.”

With a sudden movement, Sam bent and kissed her. She nestled into him, pressing her chest to his, running her hands up his back.

Then, abruptly, she stepped back with a smile.

“So you’re gonna be a lawyer,” she said. “Tell me something. You’re sixteen, I’m twenty. If we had sex, would I technically be raping you?”

“Uh,” Sam said.

Rita giggled, opened the door and went inside.

“Hot date, Winchester?” the guy at the front desk asked Sam as he came in.

“Some potential,” Sam said with a grin, going to the mailboxes and spinning the tiny combination lock on his.

“Well, you’re doin’ better than I am,” the guy said glumly.

Sam looked, without moving for a moment, at the plain white envelope postmarked Lenexa, Kansas. Then he stepped into the main living room, set his jaw and ripped it open almost violently.

The single sheet of paper had nothing attached this time, just a single computer-printed line:

THIRD STRIKE YULL BE OUT

He looked at it for several seconds longer than it took to read it.

Then he straightened his back and whispered, “People like me don’t scare that easy.”

He headed upstairs to call Detective Henriksen.

Starting up the old worn steps of Lindley Hall, Dean scowled briefly at the sound of his phone. Then he took a look at the screen and his expression changed sharply. He leaned on one of the low stone walls on either side of the staircase, letting other class-bound students move past him, and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Cas!”

“Hello, Dean. How are you?”

“Doin’ good, yourself?”

“I’m fine, except for one thing. You remember that my sister and I were having a contest?”

“Who could have the most fun, yeah. At the time you figured she was winning.”

“We compared points this past weekend. She’s not winning, she’s killing me.”

Dean laughed, then looked around as if trying to prevent people from seeing that he was enjoying himself. 

“If I’m going to – And you know, I think it was a good idea of hers, good for both of us – but if I’m going to be in the running at all, I have to do something drastic. So,” Cas’ voice had the sound of someone preparing for surgery, “I’m hosting a party.”

“That’s drastic? Man, a party’s nothing. Get a couple of kegs and some chips, make sure you’ve got the right music – ”

“No keg, I’m afraid. I’m having it at the hall. But we’ll have other drinks and snacks, foosball, and we do have a stereo. It’s Saturday, starting at seven o’clock. Would you be interested in coming?”

“I don’t know, Cas. Party with no beer? – Yeah, of course I want to come.”

“Sam said your housemates would be good people to have at a party, if you want to invite them.”

“They’ve usually got their own stuff going on weekends, but I’ll see who else can be there. Saturday at seven.”

“I, um, I look forward to seeing you.”

Dean shot a look at the last of the crowd going into the heavy doors. “I said it to myself. Like you suggested.”

“How do you feel?”

“Great, actually. Like I just decided to let go of ten tons of crap.”

“Yeah, that was how I felt.”

“Haven’t had the guts to tell anyone else yet.”

“Well, I don’t know if what worked for me works for everyone, but the first one I told was my sister Rachel. A lot of times siblings kind of already know, anyway.”

Dean stood straight. “Has Sam – said something?”

“No. It’s just, you know, they grow up with you, they’re in school with you, a lot of times they’ve figured it out long since. I really had to screw up my courage to tell Rachel, and then after all that, she wrinkled her nose and said – ” Cas’ voice took on a prissy, precise quality – “‘And the news part of this is?’”

Dean roared with laughter. “Sounds exactly like Sam. I’ve gotta get to class. See you Saturday.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Dean disconnected and took the remaining steps two at a time.

That same evening, wearing clingy jeans and a T-shirt and an apron tied around her waist, Rita sashayed across Jefferson’s to a table near the front door, where a lone occupant was writing in a notebook.

“This isn’t my table, so if you want me as your serving wench, you’re gonna have to move,” she said with a smile.

Sam looked up, his gaze innocent. “Oh. No. I didn’t come for dinner. I wanted to get you an answer to your question.”

She’d forgotten. “My question.”

“Yeah. Whether you’d be guilty of statutory rape if we had a sexual relationship. There are circumstances under which sex between us would be unlawful. If force or fear was involved, of course. If we had what’s legally defined as an ‘unlawful relationship’ – if you were my teacher or therapist, or one of us was a prisoner and the other a guard, things like that. Also, if you were causing me to be a ‘child in need of care’ – getting me to run away from home, do drugs with you, something along those lines.”

He closed his notebook. Rita blinked and opened her mouth, but Sam continued, “However, since none of those criteria apply to us, the only legal issue would be whether we’re both the age of consent. And since the age of consent in Kansas is 16, a sexual relationship between us would be perfectly legal.”

He stood, pulled her to him and kissed her. The patrons of the restaurant, mostly students, who hadn’t noticed Sam’s disquisition, erupted with cheers and hoots at the kiss.

Sam picked up his notebook and said, “Just wanted to give you your answer,” turned and walked out the door.

Before he was eight steps down the sidewalk he heard her say, “Hey, wait a minute!” behind him. He grinned briefly, but had only a look of polite inquiry on his face when he turned to her. 

“Can I borrow your phone?” she asked.

He looked a bit puzzled, but gave it to her. She held it in front of her, punching buttons, then gave it back to him.

“My number’s in there now,” she said with an insinuating smile. “Use it.”

“Or I could just ask you now. Want to have dinner tomorrow night?”

She tucked her grin firmly into the corner of her mouth. “Great. I’ll pick you up at seven. Then I can take us wherever we want to go.”

She turned and walked back to the restaurant door with sultry hip motion.

Sam clapped a hand to his forehead. “I gotta get a car,” he mumbled.

The “party room” at the scholarship hall was in the basement, but pale yellow walls and good lighting kept it from seeming murky. The chairs and sofa were mostly from the 1980s, mismatched or scratched, a cheery jumble of colors and styles with much flame-stitching. By the wall opposite the door, two long collapsible tables bore sandwich trays, bowls of chips and dips, cookies, and a lone, almost ignored tray of cut-up veggies bearing a hand-lettered sticker on the edge, “Please return tray to Rachel Novak.” Two big coolers full of ice, bottles and cans sat on the floor by the table. Beside the table, Chuck, whose scrabbly almost-beard was an attempt to look older, was devastating a plate of chocolate-chip cookies. Becky, who was a fellow student in one of Chuck’s classes, was looking at him wide-eyed and saying, “The literary journal? Really?” Next to them a stereo, on a battered stand, was playing The B-52s’ “Love Shack.”

Across the room, next to the door, a small TV set was featuring a Royals game, a couple of the hall’s residents alternately talking to the other partygoers and yelling at the screen. Near a third wall, on which a fireplace had been painted years ago, Rita sat at a wrought-iron café table reading a spread of tarot cards. The guy sitting opposite her was dividing his attention pretty evenly between the cards and her cleavage, which may have been why Sam was standing directly behind her with one hand lightly on her shoulder.

Over by the fourth wall was a foosball table approximately a thousand years old, which didn’t deter the two guys who were playing a vigorous game or the guy and girl cheering them on. 

“Hey, Sam! – Careful of that last step,” Dean said, calling over his shoulder to Andy, who was helping him carry another cooler into the room.

Sam looked over and waved. “Dean! Glad you could make it. I’d like to – Well, I’ll wait till you put that down.”

Cas looked around from where a tall, wickedly pretty brunette in the middle of the room was expounding upon something, and smiled without reserve. “Dean, I’m so glad you came.” Then he saw what Dean and Andy were putting on the floor by the other coolers, and his smile twitched. “Um – that’s not – ”

Dean pulled a can of beer out of the cooler and popped the top. “Brought the good stuff. Had to do it.”

“Oh my God, you are my hero!” the brunette exclaimed, homing in on the cooler. (Her cry, and her bending over to get a beer from the cooler, caused a hiccup in the conversation by the TV set.)

“Just – ” Cas closed his eyes briefly – “just don’t take it upstairs and don’t get me kicked out of the hall. That’s all I ask.”

“Understood,” Dean said with a grin.

“What’s your name, and how do you know Angel Boy?” the brunette asked, popping the top on her own beer can.

“My brother lives in the hall, he’s Big Bird over there,” Dean said, pointing. “My name’s Dean. How about you?”

“Pamela. Pam. I’m in New Religious Traditions with Cas.”

“She was just explaining the theology of Wicca to me,” Cas said.

“Uh-huh, but that guy just finished getting his cards read and I’m gonna get over there before someone else does.” With which, Pamela went over to sit opposite Rita. Sam beckoned Dean a little impatiently.

“Gotta get over there and see what Sam wants. You’re gonna be around, right?”

“I’m the host,” Cas said with a smile.

As he moved to Sam, Dean shot a glance down at Rita and at Sam’s hand, possessively on her shoulder. “Hey, Sammy. What’s goin’ on?”

“I just wanted you to meet Rita,” Sam said. “Rita, this is my brother Dean.”

Rita looked up flirtatiously. “Hi, Dean. Looks run in the family, don’t they?”

She was obviously looking him up and down. Dean switched on a leer. “You should see my evil twin.”

“Ooh, I’d love to.”

“How do you know Sam?”

“He came to dinner one night.”

“She’s Arnie’s daughter,” Sam filled in.

“The history professor? That’s interesting. Are you majoring in history, or did you rebel and go into something else?”

“I rebelled and dropped out,” Rita said. “You know what they say about preachers’ kids and teachers’ kids.”

Dean gestured. “Aah, dropping out of college isn’t that bad. It gives you a chance to do something interesting.”

Rita giggled. “Yeah, when I find something interesting I’ll do it.”

“Well, you do the tarot card thing, right? Wooa!” He’d looked at the table casually, then did a double-take. “Is she gonna die?”

Pamela and Rita both laughed as Dean gave a comic look at the current spread, in which Death was one of the cards.

“Someday,” Pam said cheerfully.

“Death doesn’t really mean death. Well, not usually. It usually means the end of something, a relationship or a phase in your life, something like that.” Rita’s attention returned to laying out cards.

“I’m gonna talk to Dean for a moment,” Sam told Rita. “Want anything?”

Rita gave him a grin and pointed at Pam’s beverage. “One of those.”

“Sure. Be back,” and Sam pulled Dean just outside the door to the foot of the stairs, Dean calling “Nice to meet you, Rita!” as he went.

“Sorry about the tarot cards,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “I wanted you and some other people to meet Rita, and I didn’t realize she was bringing them along.”

“They are kind of creepy,” Dean said, “but – ”

“Well, it’s not so much that, it’s the superstitious nonsense. It’s so – ” he waved his hand a little – “you know. It’s for the masses.”

Dean blinked, looked deliberately back over at the cafe table, looked back at Sam. “So – you’re dating this hot chick and your problem with her is, she likes stuff that other people like?”

Sam’s expression of disdain broke suddenly as the eager teenager took over. “She is pretty hot, isn’t she? And there’s more to her than that. Once she warms up to you, she’s a great girl.”

“I bet she is,” Dean said heartily. “That’s great, Sam. You two serious?”

“Well, we’ve only been out once, this past Wednesday, but that went real well.”

“Well, congratulations. I’m gonna go back in and raid the food table. And you better get Rita that beer before someone else does.” They were moving back into the party room, and Dean lowered his voice. “Is she old enough to drink it, not that I’m one to judge?”

“Almost. She’s twenty. And anyway, it’s like Arnie said in class a couple days ago: Laws are written because most people don’t understand their true needs and limitations. Rita does.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean said. “Hey, listen, I’ll talk to you later.”

Sam got Rita’s beer, snagging a soft drink for himself, and headed back over to her side, pulling up a chair. Dean heard Rita saying to Pam, “ – indicates that you’re blind to something going on right in front of you.” He shot an amused glance at Sam, plucked a brownie from a tray, looked around the room as if casually, then made a beeline for Castiel.

Cas was standing near the foosball table talking to an intense blonde girl and to a short, slight, nerdy kid Dean recognized as Chuck. “The President can’t just wave a magic wand and make it happen,” the blonde girl was saying, somewhat perilously waving her battle of organic green tea as if to demonstrate. “The Amazing Immobile Congress has to pass a bill.”

“Cas! Great party!” Dean said, slapping Cas’ shoulder.

“Thank you, Dean. Um, this is my sister, Rachel, and this is Chuck. This is Dean, he’s Sam’s brother.”

“Are you the one he’s having the contest with?” Dean asked with a grin. “You’re gonna have a hard time topping this one.”

“Yes, it’s worth eight points,” Rachel acknowledged. “On the other hand, my being here means I’m going out with friends, which is worth four, so he’s not that far ahead on this.”

“Why’d you invite her?” Dean asked.

Cas shrugged with a rueful expression. “I knew if I didn’t, she’d find friends to go out with anyway.”

“It’s kind of ironic,” Rachel said. “It turns out that the way to win the contest is to get serious about having fun.”

“You haven’t won yet, young lady,” Cas said in a mock-chiding tone.

“I think we both know how this is going to end,” Rachel said in the same tone, “Castiel.”

Dean looked at Cas. “Castiel?”

“It’s the name of an angel in the Book of Enoch, one of the Apocrypha,” Cas said.

“All the boys in our family are named after angels,” Rachel said, “and my older sister’s full name is Angela, even though she goes by Anna. Being the youngest, I lucked out. I’m just Biblical.”

“No wonder you went into Religious Studies!” Dean said.

“The funny thing is that our parents aren’t that traditionally religious,” Cas said. “They’re very spiritual, but they’ve been involved with various traditions, not just Judeo-Christian.”

“That’s why Pam called you Angel Boy,” Dean said with a grin, and Cas looked embarrassed.

“That, and she thinks he’s wholesome,” Rachel said. “That’s what she said a few minutes ago, anyway.”

“Moving right along,” Cas said firmly. “How’s the car? Dean’s restoring an old car,” he told the other two.

“Great. The carburetor’s being a bitch to find, but everything else is starting to come together.”

“Where do you – ”

“Castiel! Cas!”

Cas broke off his question and looked around – as did almost everyone else. Although the party room wasn’t that large, the person calling had shouted as though he were trying to be heard in an airport terminal. He was a good-looking young man with sandy hair, a fashionably stubbled jawline, and intense deep-set eyes. His bright red T-shirt called even more attention to him as he crossed the room.

The guy went directly to Cas and put a hand on his arm, standing directly in front of Dean as though Dean didn’t exist. Chuck looked unnerved; Rachel set her jaw and narrowed her eyes slightly; and Cas just looked stunned.

“You were right,” the newcomer said. “I was selfish. I was selfish and stupid. Can you please forgive me?”

Cas just stared for a moment, then found his voice. “Hello, Lucian.”

Cas closed the door to the central room between the two bedrooms. Lucian stood in the middle of the room, focused on Cas, a pucker between his eyebrows.

"I didn't know there was a party. But I probably would have come even if I'd known."

"Why?"

"I've been thinking about you. And I kept telling myself I wasn't going to call, and all the reasons I should be angry with you, and then tonight I just couldn't bear it anymore. I had to see you. I just had to."

Cas' eyebrows were raised. "All the reasons you should be angry with me?"

"I'm not saying I didn't screw up, Cas. I did. But it was a two-way street."

"I tried to make every allowance – ”

"Exactly! You couldn't just let stuff go, you had to act like I was – some kind of criminal you were putting up with. I know I could've been better to you, Cas. Believe me, I've been thinking about nothing else for two weeks. But I don't think you realize how much it hurt when I'd look at you and I'd see that look, that kind of sad judgmental look, like I could never make up for anything or be good enough."

"That was never how I felt, Lucian."

"But I didn't know that! I just figured you were putting up with me because you felt sorry for me, or you just didn't want to be alone." Lucian smiled a little. "Maybe because of other things."

Cas smiled back, but his eyes did look sad.

"And you were always being so good to me. You missed classes when I was so down I couldn't stand being alone. You forgave me for – well, all kinds of crap. I've never had anyone like that before, no one who cared about me like that. I didn't know how to handle it."

Cas turned slightly, looking out the window. "And now all of a sudden, two weeks later, you do?"

"And now all of a sudden I really want to figure out how to handle it. I think I had to be away from you to realize that."

Still looking out the window, Cas said, "Crowley stopped putting up with you, didn't he?"

Lucian gave an exasperated sigh. "Not again! You always say I'm running around with Crowley! I swear, Cas, you're the one who's obsessed with him, not me."

"I saw you with him, remember? You made sure I saw you with him last weekend."

"Yeah, we had dinner, it wasn't like – ”

"Oh it was exactly like, Lucian!" Cas turned to face him. "Don't you get how much easier your life would be if you were honest? I know Crowley, he made enough smart-aleck remarks around me, I know exactly how it went. He told you that you wouldn't always be feeling so down if it weren't for me, I was so sour, you could never have any fun. And he'd be so much more fun. But it's hard to love you, Lucian. You make it hard to love you. And Crowley – ” Cas shrugged. "You know, I think he's pretty honest. He's in it for the fun. When it stopped being fun, he stopped putting up with you. So you were seeing him for two or three weeks while we were together – ”

"I was not – ”

" – and a couple of weeks since then, yeah, that's about how long it would take for Crowley to realize that you're not just all fun and games."

Lucian stood utterly still, looking stricken.

"And you can't stand to be alone. You can't stand listening to all those voices in your head screaming how unworthy you are."

Lucian clenched his eyes tight shut, then dropped his head.

"Shut them up, Cas," he whispered. "Please."

He took hold of Cas' hand and brought it to his head, pressing Cas' long sculpted fingers against his temple. "You're the only one who makes it quiet in there. The only one."

Cas' hand opened gently, pressing against the side of Lucian's face. Lucian closed his eyes and leaned his face into the touch, then put his arms around Cas and pulled him close. His mouth sought Castiel's and he whispered, "Please," before their lips and tongues met, softly, then passionately.

Then Cas gently pulled out of the embrace, gripping Lucian's arms and backing up a step. "I can't, Lucian. I can't keep repeating the same pattern all the time."

Lucian looked astonished, then disgusted. "Thus spake the father."

"What?"

"Your dad said that thing about patterns to your brother. The night he threw me out of your house."

Cas sounded as though he were trying to explain the significance of something for the hundredth time. "You. Hit. Raphael."

"He was provoking a fight and you know it."

"I do. I also know you didn't have to go along with it."

"Your dad blamed me completely."

Cas shook his head. "You didn't hear the lecture he gave Raphael after you were gone. Told him to go back to his place and not show his face at the house until he was ready to act like an adult."

"He told me never to come back again at all. And that was after he acted so welcoming to me the times before, practically treated me like a son or a son-in-law. But now I'm thinking that my being his son's lover was his real problem."

"Dad – I – ” Cas shook his head again. "How did we get onto this? I was talking about you and me."

"So am I. He's the reason we broke up. You know that, Cas. He disapproves of me. And you can't bear to do anything your parents disapprove of. You live your life for them, like you were seven years old or something. You've never rebelled. You never lived your own life." Lucian smiled, an attractive mischievous smile. "And with me, you could live your own life. You wouldn't have to be constantly trying to live up to them. You'd only have to live up to yourself, to all those things you've thought about doing. I love you, Cas. I'd accept you, warts and all." The smile widened a little. "Kinks and all."

Cas' gaze shifted, then pulled back to meet Lucian's almost hypnotically.

Then he literally took a step away, shifting his gaze again. "I can't, Lucian. I just can't do this anymore. It always sounds so great, and it always ends up miserably. No."

"Cas. Please."

"No." Now Cas looked at him directly. "You have to learn how to treat people right, Lucian. I thought if I gave you a safe place you'd learn, and you didn't, and I can't anymore."

"I need you."

"I'm sorry."

Lucian stared at him for a moment, trembling slightly.

Then he turned and slammed his fist down onto the study table. The study lamp jumped at the bang, and Cas flinched but didn't move.

Lucian turned to him, fist still clenched. "Someday you'll want me back and I won't come," he said, and walked out, slamming the door.

Cas drew and released a long, shaking breath.

Then he sat down in the chair Dean had occupied a week before, resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead in one hand.

"He's a master manipulator," Sam was saying to Dean over the sound of Ludo's "Love Me Dead." "A couple of months ago he almost had me persuaded to write a paper for him, before I realized, you know, what the hell? And I'm not even in love with the guy."

"You think Cas is? I mean," Dean's tone instantly became casual, "you told me they had that bad breakup and all."

Sam shrugged, his expression clearly saying he didn't know. Then his face changed and his gaze sharpened at something over Dean's shoulder.

Dean turned as Lucian sauntered into the room slowly with a satisfied smirk. He looked over at the food table and drink coolers, and headed straight to get a beer.

"Oh, no no," Dean said. "I didn't buy those for assholes."

Sam kept him from heading in Lucian's direction. "That's what he's after, Dean. He'll do anything for attention, and that includes crashing a party he wasn't invited to. Anyway, you're not the host. You can't tell anyone what they can do or drink."

"So where is the host?"

"He'll be back soon, I'm sure. Meantime, don't act like a yahoo looking for a bar brawl."

At which point, Lucian walked over to Rita and made some remark, smiling. She looked up at him flirtatiously and indicated the empty chair opposite her.

Sam was gone from Dean's side in a moment.

Dean almost snorted. "Oh, Sam," he said under his breath, grinning, "don't be a yahoo."

A cry went up from the foosball table, several male voices yelling "Ohhh!" in surprise and some derision. Dean looked around. At one end of the table, Chuck had his palm to his forehead, shaking his head and groaning. At the other end, Rachel, her expression a cross between triumph and astonishment, said, "I've never played before, I swear!"

"OK, OK, time to get serious here." Andy abandoned the Royals game to supplant Chuck, grinning broadly. Becky told Chuck, "I thought you played very well," as Rachel brought her accustomed intensity to bear on the new game.

Dean shook his head. "Cas is so dead," he mumbled.

He looked back over at the café table. Lucian had some of the tarot cards in his hand and was leaning toward Rita, showing them to her and saying something with a mischievous smile. She leaned toward him as well, her face alight with merriment. Sam sat in a chair between them, ignored, leaning forward as if trying to block the space between them, looking every bit the miserable 16-year-old he was.

Dean ambled over to the food table, which put him in earshot of the three, picked up a piece of cauliflower, popped it into his mouth and made a face.

"Where'd you learn all that?" Rita asked Lucian.

"From a woman I know, a professional psychic in L.A."

"I love L.A.! I stayed out there with someone who has a condo right on the beach."

"I slept on the beach a couple of times, but that's not nearly as good."

"Well, it depends," Rita said with a meaningful smile. "Have you ever been to Madeo?"

Lucian nodded, but unenthusiastically. "Great food. But the atmosphere's, you know. I always get the feeling that everyone there's just sitting around holding their breath waiting for a movie star to show up."

Rita nodded in return. "I know what you mean. There's an awful lot of that out there."

"So, did any movie stars actually show up?" Sam asked, facing Lucian and placing one hand with great casualness on Rita's knee.

"Lucian," Cas said.

All three of them started a bit, looking up at him.

“You weren’t invited to this party,” Cas said quietly.

Lucian raised his voice a little. “Are you going to throw me away from here, too?”

Cas looked at him steadily for a moment, shook his head, and deliberately turned his back.

Dean was directly in front of him, a few feet away. Cas smiled at him and walked past him to go to the stereo.

Dean looked at his unhappy younger brother, but there clearly wasn’t much he could do about that situation, so he followed Cas – circling around to face him, because Cas still had his back to the end of the room where Lucian was.

“Your sister’s a foosball shark, Novak!” one of the guys called from the game table.

Cas looked bemused. “Not a sentence you hear every day.”

Dean lowered his head a bit to catch Cas’ gaze, then glanced over Cas’ shoulder. “Want me to get rid of him? I could do it.”

Cas shook his head. “He wants to either make me jealous or at least stir up some kind of commotion. The best way to get rid of him is to ignore him.”

“He wants to make you jealous by coming on to my brother’s date? I thought he was, you know.”

Dean’s voice stopped suddenly as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word in public. Cas lowered his voice. “Lucian claims to be bisexual, although I always thought that was so I’d know the whole world was my competition. He doesn’t seem to like women, really.”

Dean looked back at the café table as Cas flipped through a stack of CDs.

“Oh, do you mind?” Rita plucked Sam’s hand off of her knee and put it on his own. “You’ve been hanging onto me ever since we got here.”

“I’m so sorry, Rita.” Lucian stood. “It’s my fault. I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I’m making myself unwelcome everywhere.” He smiled down at her sadly. “It was nice meeting you.”

He headed out the door and up the stairs.

Rita glanced after him, looked at Sam, and stood. “I’m going to apologize. Stay.”

Her beer still in her hand, she followed Lucian.

Sam looked depressed, then ticked off. Then he was gone too.

He looked around the main hallway and the front room before stepping out onto the porch. Rita and Lucian were on the front lawn, near the parking lot. Between the parking lot lights and the street light, Sam could see Lucian holding Rita’s beer as she punched buttons on his cell phone. Then they swapped the items and Lucian put the phone in his pocket with a smile.

Sam approached them. “Rita?”

Rita looked abashed, then defensive. “What, now I can’t even go outside? You’re worse than my dad!”

“Hey, do whatever you want. It’s fine. It’s just, if I’d known you were gonna use this party as a pickup joint, we wouldn’t have come.”

With a sharp jerk, Rita splashed beer all over Sam’s face and shirt. Then she headed for her car.

Sam wiped off his face to see Lucian grinning at him. “Women,” he said, not unsympathetically, and he walked toward the parking lot too.

Sam stood stock-still in the middle of the yard for a moment. Then he trudged back inside.

He rinsed off his face in the bathroom a few doors down from his room, then went to his suite. He threw the soaked T-shirt on the floor in disgust and went into his bedroom, where his clothes were.

There was a box wrapped in brown paper sitting on his desk.

It had been sent through the mail. He should have had a slip of paper in his mailbox, but it was possible that the front-desk guy had forgotten the notice, then just ran the box up to Sam’s room when his shift ended.

Something like that.

The postmark was Topeka. But even in a pretty good-size town like Topeka, a package without a return address will attract suspicion. So it had a return address. It read in full:

Box MA15  
Topeka, KS 66612

Sam backed out of the room, closing the door gently.

“Hey, Sam!”

He jumped, turning to see Ash, one of his suite-mates, coming out of the other bedroom. “I just got back from dinner. Do they need anything down at the party, besides me?”

“Uh, no,” Sam said. “You go on down. I just, I’m looking for my phone.”

Ash looked around, scooped the phone from beside a pile of books on a bookshelf, and handed it to Sam. “You could use a shirt too,” he said helpfully as he left.

Three minutes later, there was a thundering sound as Sam, still shirtless, ran down the stairs to the party room. Ignoring Pamela’s “Woo-woo!”, he grabbed every beer can, empty or not, from the food table and dumped them into the cooler. He grabbed Pam’s beer out of her hand, to her astonishment, and dropped it in the cooler too. Pamela picked up on it and grabbed a couple of cans from the top of the TV set. She had dropped them in the cooler and was standing in front of it when Rufus, the hall’s resident director, came down the stairs.

He obviously wasn’t looking for forbidden drinks, though. He cut straight across to the stereo, turned it off, and said, “People. I need your attention, people.”

He got it.

“We’ve had a bomb threat,” he said. “Most of the time these things are false alarms, but we’re going to evacuate the building. The police have been called. Don’t go back to your rooms. Please leave by the front door and meet on the front lawn of Grace Pearson Hall. This is just a precaution.”

There was a murmur of conversation but a pretty calm movement toward the staircase. Dean spotted Sam and went over to him, reading his face. “What’s goin’ on?”

“I’ll explain later,” Sam said, watching people leave.

“Where’s Rita? And, um, your shirt?”

“Rita’s gone,” Sam said.

Dean said nothing else, looking around the room until he spotted Cas. Cas was watching as Rachel started up the stairs. Then he looked around, but his gaze stopped and he smiled when he spotted Dean.

Police cars were pulling up as the partiers, and everyone else who’d been in the hall, made their way over to the front lawn of the adjoining scholarship hall. Most of the officers remained near the cars, turning floodlights on to the front of the evacuated building, talking on police radios, beginning to set up a perimeter. A tall bald man wearing a suit walked toward the crowd, looked around, and came directly over to Sam. “Sam?”

“Hi, Detective Henriksen,” Sam said, rather muffled.

“Who’s this?”

“This is my brother, Dean. We were at a party downstairs.”

“Bad way to end a party,” Henriksen said. “Now tell me again. It’s on your desk? Where’s your room?”

“Two-twenty. Second floor, left at the top of the stairs. The door to the suite’s open, but I closed the bedroom door. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Understandable. You say the address labels were printed, like the letters?”

“Um, yes.” Sam shot a look at Dean, who was openly staring at him, seemed to find it easier to look at Henriksen. “The address label just had my name and address, and the return address was Box MA15, Topeka, Kansas.”

“Hmp,” Henriksen said.

“Detective!” one of the policemen called. Henriksen looked around, then back at Sam. “I’ll be right back. It’s pretty chilly out here, I’ll find you a shirt or jacket or something.”

“No, I’m fine,” Sam said.

Henriksen took off, and now Sam had to look at Dean.

“MA15? What the hell, Sam?”

“It’s not really him,” Sam said stubbornly, as if Dean had already disagreed with him. “It’s just some idiot. After my name was in the paper, I got a couple of letters.”

“Letters.”

“‘I know where you live,’ stuff like that. When I saw the box on my desk I thought, better safe than sorry. But there’s not going to be anything in it. This is just some – peasant with a bad sense of humor. It would be insane for the real guy to send me stuff, risking that he’d give something away.”

“OK.” Dean passed a hand over his face. “Sam, MA15 is insane. You get that, right?”

“Yeah, I get that. This isn’t MA15. It isn’t.”

“So you figured I didn’t need to know – You did tell Dad about this, right?”

Sam shivered a little, watching the police.

“Sam? Did you tell Dad – ”

“No, I didn’t, and neither will you.” Sam looked at him. “Please, Dean. You know him. He’ll be all over me if he knows, maybe he’ll try to make me leave college. Please don’t tell him.”

Dean stared at him for a moment, shook his head. “I don’t know why I listen to you. You’re spending the night at my house tonight. Tomorrow night too.”

Sam shivered again. “OK.”

Dean started unbuttoning his shirt. “No, Dean, really, I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” Dean took off his shirt, revealing the white T-shirt underneath. “I’ve got a T-shirt, I’ll be fine. Put this on.”

Sam did so, looking guilty, his wrists protruding a couple of inches from the ends of the sleeves.

Dean looked around and spotted Cas again. Rufus was talking to him, and Dean got a somewhat guilty look too. “So – you find a bomb in your room and the first thing you do is come down and try to hide the beer cans?”

“It’s not a bomb. Detective Henriksen told me to tell Rufus, and of course I knew Rufus would come down. I just wanted to try to keep Cas from getting into trouble, on top of – ” Sam gestured widely – “everything else.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my job, I brought ’em. Is that Rufus, talking to Cas?”

“Yes.”

“OK. I’m going over there, and if he’s giving Cas grief about the beer, I’ll tell him Cas didn’t know I was bringing it. You. Don’t go away.”

Sam shook his head, and Dean struck off across the lawn, averting his eyes from the intense red-and-blue lights flashing up and down the street.

True to his word, Sam stayed over at Dean’s house, cooking brunch as a way of thanking Dean and his housemates. He was quiet that morning, but he was walking briskly down the sidewalk as he returned from a trip to the bookstore and grocery store, a paperback stuck in his jacket pocket and a plastic bag dangling from his hand. He bounded up the creaking steps of the rental house, flung open the screen door and let it rest on his back as he opened the front door covered with flaking paint.

Two men were sitting on the shabby living room sofa facing the front door, and Sam froze.

He shot a look of angry betrayal at the man on the right – Dean, who simply raised his eyebrows in response. He actually addressed the man on the left, but not joyously. “Dad.”

“Sam,” John Winchester said. “Come in. Have a seat.”

Looking as if he’d prefer a root canal, Sam did so.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were getting threatening letters?” John’s deep voice had that could-go-either-way quality – a serious quiet talk about an important issue, or a major roaring parental chewing-out.

“I wasn’t getting threatening letters. The first one just said, ‘I know where you live.’ The second one said, ‘Three strikes you’re out.’”

“No, it was more direct than that, Sam,” John said. “I spent some time this morning at KUPD. I saw the note. It said, ‘Third strike you’ll be out.’ You think that making it sound blander is going to keep you out of trouble?”

Sam shrugged, shifting his gaze, putting the grocery bag on the floor. “I didn’t memorize them.”

John shook his head. “I’ve seen a lot of denial among victims and potential victims, so I understand that some people – that’s the way their minds work. But you’re smarter than that, Sam. And I raised you better. You don’t just ignore a threat from anyone. Especially if there’s any chance that it comes from a sociopathic serial criminal.”

“I didn’t ignore it! I showed them to the police right away!”

“But you didn’t tell me about it. Why?”

Sam faced his father squarely. “I was afraid you’d make me leave college. I was afraid you’d treat me like I was twelve, like I can’t take care of myself.”

“And you thought the way to prove you’re a man was by not telling your family or the people you live with about threats to your life.”

“They’re not threats to my life! The thing last night was a smoke bomb! A smoke bomb that fizzled! This guy’s not even bright enough to put together a smoke bomb that works! He’s not a threat!”

“He’s bright enough to send two letters and a package through the mail without leaving a clue as to who he is. And if it is MA15, he’s bright enough to abduct and rape four girls between New Year’s Eve two years ago and now without getting caught. And son, if you absolutely refuse to believe that there’s even a chance that it’s MA15 sending you mail, you’re the one acting stupid.”

With a jerk, Sam sat up straighter. Dean said hastily, “So KUPD told you about the case? I mean, more than they’d tell a civilian?”

“A little more. Enough to make me think there’s a possibility of a real threat to Sam.”

“Can you tell me something? Do they know what MA15 means?”

John shook his head. “They have theories, of course, but no one theory has more proof than any other.”

“Another thing, how is it that this asshole rapes all these women without leaving DNA evidence?”

“Well, you know, Dean, not everyone’s DNA is in a database.” As John answered, Dean shot a look at Sam, who looked less angry, absorbed in the conversation. “But even so, he’s making sure there’s no DNA to haunt him if he ever gets caught. He – Now both of you understand, this isn’t for the public. I’m telling you boys because I know that you know how to keep your mouths shut.”

His sons nodded in perfect unison.

“He washes them off. Washes them out, too. Not gently. The girls sustained injuries just from that.”

Dean clenched his jaw, looking at the floor. Sam tipped his head. “Do they know why? I mean, thank God he hasn’t killed anyone yet, but you’d think if you were a sociopath concerned about evidence it’d be easier to kill your victim and bury her somewhere, hope no one found her until everything was degraded.”

John took a breath. “They have a theory. I don’t think I can – ”

Dean looked up suddenly, his voice abrupt and frightening. “He wants to see them. He’s hoping to see them walking around, knowing what he did to them, with that brand on their face or bandages or a scar. He’s on campus, isn’t he?”

“That’s – a theory,” John said cautiously. “Some of the abductions occurred on campus, some off. The victims don’t have classes or schedules in common, not even really extracurricular activities – a couple of them auditioned for Theatre Department plays, a couple of them have gone to basketball games, but really the only thing they have in common are that they’re all white females who regularly walked in a lonely place at night, and they’ve all been students.”

“I’m surprised that he expects them to stay, after that,” Dean said.

“Two of them have left. Two of them decided that they weren’t going to let a sociopath dictate their lives,” John said.

“Do you know – ” Sam almost seemed startled that he’d said it, but when his father looked at him he finished the sentence – “that girl, Jess, the one who was attacked the night I was there – do you know if she’s gone?”

“No, I don’t. Do you know her?”

“No. I was just wondering.”

“Couldn’t they trace him through the brand he uses?” Dean asked. “I mean, that’s gotta be a pretty rare – ”

“You can make a branding iron out of a coat hanger, using the right tools,” Sam said. “The girls were attacked out in the country, in different places, but apparently he set the place up beforehand, with a hibachi to keep the iron hot and, you know, duct tape and stuff.”

Both of the others looked at him.

“I did some research. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” John said. “But you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re not in real danger. So I do want you to come home for the remainder of the semester. Don’t start with me, Sam. I’m not going to let you be murdered just because you like school.”

“What happened to not letting psychopaths dictate our lives? Why not just tell all the female students to leave campus?”

“If one specific female student was being targeted by this lunatic, I’d suggest that she find someplace else to study. This isn’t just a generalized threat to a group of students, son. You disrupted this guy’s fantasy, and he’s after you. Maybe he just wants to scare you, but I’m not taking the chance. Look, I understand that this is hard for you. I do. But it’s not like your life will stop. Come home, get a job for a few months, save up money for car insurance, we’ll get you a car at the beginning of the fall semester. Wherever you go to college, you’ll still be younger than most of the freshmen there.”

His jaw tense, not looking at his father, Sam nodded a little, as if he were processing information. Then he looked at John directly. “No, sir.”

For a moment John looked angry, then he shook his head. “Serve me right for insisting that a college degree is so important. All right. Tomorrow we’ll both make some calls, see if there’s a place you can transfer mid-semester. There are other good schools.”

“I know that. I was accepted to some of them, remember? I’m staying at KU.”

“Why?” Dean asked, startling both of the others a little. “I mean, it’s a great place, but there’s lots of schools you could go to, Sam.”

“This is – ” Sam spread his hands, trying to explain. “This is mine. My second home. You know how many weekends I spent here in junior high and high school? Hanging out in the Natural History Museum, the library? Reading by Potter Lake, listening to the carillon? My first real date, Madison and I went to a concert at Lied Hall. This is where I fell in love with the whole idea of a college education. You have any idea how lucky I was to get into a scholarship hall mid-year? I’m not giving up that spot. I’m not giving up my friends there. I’m not gonna be robbed of my own plans by a bastard who wants to vent his rage because he’s utterly unexceptional.”

“I’m sorry, son. I am. But I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”

“Yes I do. I can refuse.”

John lowered his head. Dean rolled his eyes as if Sam had said he wanted to check a pilot light using a match for illumination. “Don’t you defy me. I’ll have you back in Wichita so fast your head will spin.”

“How will you do that? Sir?”

John took a moment to absorb the near-contempt in Sam’s tone. “Well, for one thing, I’ll stop paying for your housing and expenses.”

“I’ll get student loans. I’ll work part-time. It’ll take me longer to get my degree, but at least I’ll be getting it on my own terms.”

“Not if I say you can’t. You’re still a child, Sam, and you still need my permission to do any of those things.”

“I’ll file a petition to be treated as an emancipated minor. By the time it gets to a hearing, I’ll be seventeen anyway. How hard do you think the judge will fight me?”

“Depends on how hard I fight you.”

“Really? You’d be willing to take time off work? Amazing.”

“You ungrateful little – ”

“OK, OK,” Dean yelled. “Do you want to hear my suggestion? Or you wanna duke it out?”

The two exchanged a glare, then broke it off to look at Dean.

“Sam stays where he is,” Dean said, “officially. Keeps most of his clothes there, eats his meals there, whatever. But after dinner he comes over here – it’s only a few blocks, and it’s occupied houses all the way, not to mention he’s passing by a couple of bars with a lot of people in them most nights. He spends the evening and night here, brings a change of clothes, showers here, goes back to the hall or up to campus in the morning. Let’s face it, Sam, five or six nights a week you’ve got your nose buried in books anyway, you can do that here just as easy as there. Yeah, it’d be a hassle. But the police are going to be checking your mail from now on, so if you’re spending your nights someplace other than where you spend your days and you keep your eye out for anyone following you, it’ll make it harder to reach you or track you.”

“Unless they just decide to look up Winchester in the phone book and see that there are others,” John said.

Dean gave his father the poor-clueless-elders look. “We all have cell phones, Dad. There’s no land line to be listed in the directory.”

“I have dinner dishes duty three nights a week,” Sam said.

“Well, then, swap jobs with someone who does something you could do in the daytime between classes. Bathroom cleaning. I bet you’d be a great bathroom cleaner.”

Sam gave Dean a dour look. Dean grinned at him.

John deliberately focused his attention on Dean. “You’d keep the windows and doors locked? At all times? Pay attention to strange cars parked in the street, strangers hanging around? Stay with your brother as much as possible, meet him while he’s walking here and walk here with him?”

Dean nodded at each question, but Sam objected to the last. ‘I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

“Keep quiet, Sam. Your brother’s saving your bacon. Although,” to Dean, “you’re going to have to convince me that I’m not just putting both of my sons in danger.”

“I’m not the only one here, Dad. It’s Andy and Travis and Gordon, too. This is a guy who gets his jollies torturing one girl. I don’t think he’s going to try handling a houseful of guys. And that’s even if he figures out where Sam is, which I don’t think he will, since Sam won’t be filing a change of address with the Post Office. And that’s even if it really is MA15.”

“Before I go, you check with Andy and the others. Make sure they’re willing to take the risk.”

“Yes, sir.” Dean smiled. “Although I don’t think there’s any question about Gordon. He’s gonna be sharpening his hunting knife and planning booby traps.”

“Great.” John’s tone was wry. “Make sure he doesn’t kill a Girl Scout selling cookies. Actually,” he looked back at Sam, “I’m surprised you never thought of that. That you were putting the other residents of your hall at risk by not telling anyone about this.”

“That’s because there’s no danger,” Sam said stubbornly. “But as it happens, I ran across a few of the guys from Schuyler having lunch downtown a while ago. And I asked ’em, now that everything’s out in the open, if they thought anyone in the hall would be nervous having me around, if they thought I was a risk. They all said no. I live with exceptional people, Dad. They have the will to stay calm and the intelligence to keep threats at bay. Even if there was a threat. Which there’s not.”

“I am not going to agree to this plan,” John said, “unless you look me in the eye and admit that there’s a possibility of a real threat.”

After a moment, Sam sighed and looked his father in the eye. “OK. Yes. Theoretically, there could really be a threat.”

“And part of the trade-off for my letting you stay here is that you’ll stay aware of your surroundings, be around other people as much as possible, and tell me anything even remotely strange.”

“OK. Yeah. I’ve got no problem with that.”

“All right.” John sat back and looked at Dean. “Thank you, son.”

Dean looked a little startled. “Sure.”

“You talk to your roommates about how much they want Sam to kick in for rent and utilities the next couple of months, and I’ll pay it. Sam, you’ll be home working over the summer anyway, and before next fall we’ll re-evaluate the situation.”

“And maybe MA15 will be caught by then,” Dean said.

“Maybe,” John said, but his tone was not optimistic.

Sam rose. “If that’s settled, I’m going outside.”

“I’m taking you both to dinner at six,” John said.

“OK. I’m just makin’ a call.” Sam pulled his cell phone out of a jacket pocket as he walked back out the front door, closing it behind him.

John shook his head. “What is all that stuff about exceptional people and unexceptional people?”

“His favorite professor.” Dean picked the grocery bag up off the floor and headed for the kitchen. “History is made by exceptional people, the ones with brains and will, blah blah blah. Can’t wait till that class is over. Sam sounds like a jerk sometimes.”

John grinned. “Well. Thank goodness he’s the only college freshman ever to get that way.” 

There was a thunk from the kitchen as Dean dropped the whole bag on a counter and came back out. “Hey, I was never that bad!”

John leaned back, looking at the TV next to the chair where Sam had been sitting. “Is there a game on?”

“Gotta be somewhere,” Dean said, picking up the remote control.

Out in the yard, a brilliant green with young grass, Sam leaned against a tree with his phone to his ear. A woman’s voice answered with a giggle. “This better be important.”

Sam’s expression clearly said it was the last voice he wanted to hear. “Rita. Hi. Is your dad there?”

“No, ’fraid not. Is this Sam? Is it about your homework?”

Her gibing tone wasn’t subtle. “No. I wanted to thank him.”

“Thank Dad? For what?”

“I just stood up to – I just had a conversation with someone that I couldn’t have had before I knew Arnie. I just, I wanted to let him know that he’s had a really good effect – ”

“Cut it out!” Rita said with another giggle, and Sam halted, confused, until he realized that she was talking to someone else.

“Is that the little boy?” the someone else said. “Hi, Sam!”

Sam recognized Lucian’s voice. He disconnected, stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets, and stared at the ground.

.

Dean gave up his bedroom to his younger brother. It was just cruel and unusual punishment to ask six-foot-four Sam to sleep on the sofa. Andy mooched cheerfully off of Sam’s vast stores of knowledge and research abilities. Gordon recruited him to help repaint the front railing, porch and door. “I don’t care if we don’t own it,” Gordon said. “I’m sick of living in a place that looks like a crack house.” Dean, picking up a paint scraper, admitted that he had a point.

John called every night for the first five nights, supposedly to check on Sam’s safety but pretty obviously to be sure that Sam was at Dean’s house, living up to his part of the bargain. On Friday night, forestalling a Sam explosion, Dean told John that Sam was having dinner at a restaurant with his professor on Saturday, and he himself had “a thing” that same night, so John could rest assured that both of his sons were surrounded by other people and shouldn’t feel the need to call the next night.

Eight-thirty Saturday night found Dean and Cas walking down Jayhawk Boulevard, the main drag through campus. They’d just been at Ecumenical Campus Ministries, which was only a couple of blocks off campus, packaging up donated non-perishable foodstuffs for an anti-hunger project. The six people in the group and filled and sealed more than 200 large plastic bags, putting them into a stack of boxes for delivery the next day. The others were going to a coffeehouse downtown afterward, but Cas begged off and then Dean did too.

Saturday-night celebrations weren’t on campus, of course; even the students who rented a house between ECM and the Student Union must have been whooping it up downtown, the darkness was so still. They were going down the sidewalk next to an empty lot by the Union parking lot when Dean stopped, looking to his right. “The hell?”

A young woman with a backpack was walking slowly across the empty lot, apparently toward the parking lot, well away from the street.

“What is she doing?” Dean asked, as if Cas would know. “There was another rape just last Saturday.”

Cas opened his mouth, but Dean was already moving and Cas followed.

“’Scuse me – ’scuse me, miss?” As the two men approached, the woman stopped and looked around. Her gaze was wary, but she wasn’t flinching.

“You need – sorry, I just wondered – you need someone to walk you to your car or something?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks.”

“You know there’s a nut going around attacking women. You really shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh, OK. Well, wherever you’re going, why don’t you just let us tag along? I promise, we’re not creeps. I mean,” Dean pointed at Cas, “he’s in Religious Studies.”

The woman gave Dean a level look with amusement beginning to curl her lips. “Thanks, but I’m really fine.”

Dean took a step back, his mouth open slightly. Then he said quickly, “Sure thing. Sorry to bother you. Have a good night.”

As quickly as he’d left the sidewalk, he returned to it, resuming their route as Cas fell into step beside him. “All right,” Cas said, “what was that about?”

Dean gave a muffled laugh, looking around, speaking in a low tone. “She’s a cop. Dad would be embarrassed that it took me so long to catch on.”

“Good thing we weren’t drunk and rowdy,” Cas said, looking around them.

Dean saw him and chuckled. “Don’t even bother. You won’t see the others.”

Prairie wind whistled across the dark campus as they walked on. Dean half-zipped up his old leather jacket; Cas' trench coat billowed around him. They talked about classes. Dean updated Cas on the quest for a carburetor. Cas told Dean about the summer he spent in Arizona with a group of people who provided water to illegal immigrants going across the desert. Dean told Cas about the summer he spent working in a salt mine near Hutchinson; Sam had come to visit him, went to see the Cosmosphere, and got so absorbed in the exhibits that he was almost locked in the museum overnight.

"I still haven't told him yet," Dean said after a moment. "Starting to wonder if I've ever really had any guts at all."

"I'm sure you do," Cas said as they walked down 14th Street, hearing the crowd noise from the Wheel a half-block away. "The circumstances have been unusual."

"Maybe that's it. You know, up until this week, if I'd told Sam, we'd go our separate ways, he'd get a chance to absorb it before we see each other again. Now, if I tell Sam, he's still there the next day and again the next night." Dean shook his head. "Or I've never had any guts at all."

"Hey Dean!" As they neared the Wheel, a young man in a flannel shirt, one of many leaning on the front railing several steps above street level, waved at him. "C'mon up! I'll buy y'a beer!"

"Thanks, Travis. Catch you later." Dean waved as they walked by, and Travis tipped his head, looking at Cas.

"I think I just told Travis before anyone else," Dean said with a chortle.

"Just because you passed up a free beer?"

"To walk with another guy? Yeah. 'Course, he'll probably be too plowed to remember."

"Well, if he asks, just tell him what we were doing. Which reminds me. You've been to a party at Schuyler and a project at ECM tonight. Next time we should do something more along the lines of what you'd like."

"Yeah?" Dean said with an insinuating inflection.

"Yeah. Hot-dog-eating contest. Tractor pull. Something like that."

"Funny. You're a funny guy." Dean glanced over at Cas' subtle smile as they turned onto the walkway that ran along several scholarship halls, the bar's noise absorbed by trees and brick buildings. "How's the contest coming?"

"We compare points tomorrow. I think I might be gaining ground."

"Does tonight count?"

Cas hesitated. "Well, actually, why not? I tend to think of 'fun' as 'frivolous.' But even if it wasn't frivolous, tonight I got together with friends, that's worth four points. Thanks, Dean, I'll put that down."

"What are other things worth?"

"Oh, pretty much what we agree on. We both agreed that hosting a party would be worth eight points, a date worth five points, going to a carnival three points."

"Well, we oughta – Hang on a moment."

Dean left the path, heading fast toward a darkened back corner of Schuyler with a tall ornamental shrub near it. After a moment, Cas followed.

Deep in the shadowed area between tree and building, Dean rounded on Cas, pulled him into his arms, and kissed him.

In an instant Cas' arms were around Dean and he was responding, slow and sensual.

Their mouths pulled gently apart, and Dean whispered with a smile, "Now it's a date, so it's worth five points."

Cas grabbed the front of Dean's jacket, pushed him back against the wall, and crushed Dean's lips against his own with ferocity. 

Almost as abruptly, he pulled away. Dean reached for him with a half-comic, half-serious whimper.

"You know what would be – a really good idea?" Cas asked breathlessly.

"I'm all ears."

Cas smiled evilly. "For you to come out to one other person. Doesn't really matter who."

Dean blinked for a moment. Then, "Are you kidding me? You're going to hold out on me? Until I tell – OK, that's extortion."

"Extortion is such an ugly word," Cas said, still smiling. "Let's just call it an incentive."

"That's – you're – that's – ”

Cas stepped back closer to him. "Say what you will about my previous relationships, they've all been guys who were very open about themselves. I value that, Dean. And you're so superior to them in so many ways, it's a shame for you to still – ”

"I'm what?"

"Superior to them. You're an extraordinarily good man, Dean, you think I don't realize that? Honest, kind, smart, funny – ”

Dean laughed, shaking his head. Cas tipped his head. "You don't think you deserve to be loved? Why?"

"Oh, I – not so much that I don't – To be loved by you. To have someone like you saying those things. Talk about superior. You're – I don't know who'd be good enough for you."

Cas shook his head. "I've got faults, Dean. Don't – don't go into this thinking things that aren't true. I'm not perfect. And you deserve someone good. And I think we might be good together. That's enough, isn't it?"

He took a step away. Dean seized him by the lapel of his coat and pulled him back, crushing Cas to his chest, running his face over Cas' end-of-day stubble, his lips at Cas' ear. "It's going to be more than enough. It's gonna be great. When I come out, you're gonna give me everything I want. As often as we want it. And, yeah, you're going to admit that it's great."

Cas grabbed Dean's arm as if for support. They stood still for a moment, locked gazes, rough breath and clutching hands, an explosion about to happen.

Then Cas pulled himself away and cleared his throat. "I look forward to it," he said simply, and struck determinedly across the lawn toward Schuyler's front door.

"Sam?"

Startled, Sam looked over at Arnie, then looked apologetic. "Sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew outside."

Looking as if she knew that Sam had been stealing a glance at her face, Rita turned her head to look out one of the windows of Pachamamas, from which angle Sam could see only the back of her head, not the faint but clear bruise tracing the bones around her eye.

Arnie glanced at his daughter, then back at his student. "You seem distracted this evening, Sam."

"Yeah, sorry. My life is just kinda crazed these days."

"Nothing bad, I hope."

"No – Well, yeah, actually it is bad. But it'll be OK. And I'll tell you, I was really looking forward to not even thinking about it tonight."

"Struggle and fear are important in the development of human beings – at least, human beings who make any contribution to society. Are you sure you don't want to discuss it? Often just verbalizing a concern helps you move toward a solution."

"It's – I – Maybe later, OK? It kind of freaks me out even to think about it."

Arnie smiled. "Then I won't press you. Ah, thank you." This last was to the waiter who put an empty wine glass in front of Sam.

Arnie picked up the bottle sitting on the table and let the red liquid trickle into Sam's glass. "Now, take a sip of that, let it linger on your tongue for just a moment, then tell me what you taste."

Sam shot a glance around the quiet dim restaurant, the gentlemen in suits and ladies in expensive sweaters. He himself, while not wearing a jacket, had on a white button-down shirt and tie, and he straightened as if trying to look more accustomed to his surroundings.

He raised his eyebrows in polite approval as he lifted the glass, obviously trying to look like he did this every day. His expression was more natural, smiling and curious, after he'd sipped. "It's kind of – smoky?"

"Very interesting, Sam. Yes, wine will sometimes pick up a smoky undertone from the oak barrel in which it's aged, and I think you're right, this cabernet does have a smoky hint to it." Arnie took a slow sip of his own wine glass and poured himself some more. "'Toasty' is the term more frequently used."

Sam nodded and shot another look at Rita, but she was focused on cutting her leg of lamb and seemed uninclined to join in the conversation. He looked back at Arnie. "You were saying how the robber barons should just be called industrialists, and it reminded me that we were going to talk about not casting moral judgments."

"Oh, that's right. Well, Sam, why do you suppose that I'm against casting moral judgments?"

"Well, I know that when it comes to history it's hard to do, because a lot of times their ideas of right and wrong were different from our ideas of right and wrong."

"True."

"But you said I shouldn't do it either in the study or history or the practice of law. That sounds like you think there's no right and wrong even in a culture where people more or less agree on right and wrong."

"I wouldn't say there's no right and wrong. I would say that what's right for some is wrong for others, and vice versa. Let's take a rather straightforward example. A steelworker, let's say, or a miner or assembly-line worker. Traditional morality would say that such a man should marry and father children within wedlock, that it is immoral for him to father children outside of marriage and somewhat disturbing for him to remain unmarried, and in this case conventional morality is correct. Because what does such a man contribute to society?"

"Uh – back-breaking labor?"

"Precisely. Simple – although admittedly very wearing – physical labor, repetitive although necessary tasks. This is the work for the masses of people – even those we call white-collar. Salesmen who are brilliant only at engaging others, managers whose genius lies in delegating paperwork. Society requires stability from the masses, a steady ground upon which to build the society's higher accomplishments. And marriage and children, while no guarantees, are great contributors to stability."

"Except that the morality really has changed. It's not considered so shocking to have kids outside of marriage these days, or even not to get married at all."

"Yes. And you see the state that the working and lower classes are in."

"Well – ”

"Now let's take the example of, for instance, a brilliant scientist or a general whose strategies are necessary for the protection of his society. What is right for the assembly-line worker – is it also right for them?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Sam asked.

"Because the stability that is necessary for the well-being of the masses is stultifying to the exceptional mind. Such men require independence and the ability to take risks. They need to be able to stay at their work all night without upsetting their wives, pour their assets into their work without worrying about feeding children, travel at a moment's notice – In other words, they need the ability to lead unstable lives. And society needs that from them as well. What is right for the masses is wrong for such men."

"And women," Sam said with a little smile, as he took another sip of wine.

"What? Oh, yes. If a brilliant woman can rid herself of the need for intimate emotionalism, yes, such creative instability can be right for her as well."

Had Arnie cast a quick glance at Rita during that speech? It crossed Sam's mind, but something else caught him. "So you're saying that history makers need to be emotionally cut off from other people? Isn't that kind of – well, tough on them, but also dangerous to society?"

"When did I ever say that exceptional people have easy lives? Their uniqueness is indeed often, as you say, tough on them. For the lucky ones, the isolation they must undergo is a – an exchange, if you will, for the laurels and sexual prizes society bestows upon them. But why would you think that a lack of emotional intimacy would be dangerous to society?"

"Well, if they can't identify with other people's needs, how can they make decisions that are good for other people?"

Arnie sat back, swirling the wine in his glass a little. "Do you think that history makers make their decisions thinking of other people's best interests?"

A bit of chicken breast on his fork, Sam paused just long enough to say, "I have a feeling you're gonna say no," before he ate it.

"Of course not. That's the province of philanthropists – and philanthropists do have an important role to play in society. But extraordinary individuals work to further their ambitions or their passions, and bring their society along with them by the attractiveness of their drive, by their force of will."

"That's why we shouldn't make moral judgments? Because what an exceptional person is doing, even if it seems morally iffy, will eventually, like, build up his society?"

"A simplistic way of putting it, Sam, but you have the basic idea." Arnie nodded a couple of times. "I have to say again how impressive it is that someone of your age grasps these concepts."

Sam smiled shyly. "Well. Gotta have a good teacher."

Arnie nodded with a return smile, acknowledging the compliment. Sam looked at Rita as though trying to engage her in the conversation, looked away from her eye, then suddenly looked back at her. "I have to return your tarot cards."

She gave him a funny little look, amused and reproving at the same time. Given the circumstances under which she'd left the party, the occurrence immediately afterward of which she might or might not be aware, the fact that her father might or might not be aware that she'd had a couple of dates with Sam, and her father's probable disapproval of tarot cards, it was hard to tell which of those issues caused the look.

Sam seemed to try to cover it all. "I invited Rita to a party at my scholarship hall last weekend. She brought her cards, and they turned out to be a great ice-breaker. All kinds of people were standing around talking. So they were great to have at a party, even if they are kind of superstitious and New Agey."

Rita chuckled. "Well, that's better than what people used to say about them."

"Yeah, I've always wondered how people got so scared of little pieces of cardboard with pictures on them."

"Oh, the Church hated anyone trying to use insight that didn't come from the priesthood. Priests really hated tarot cards, managed to get rid of the major arcana completely. Those are the cards like Death, Sam – the ones that creeped out your brother. The minor arcana, with the four suits numbered ace through ten and the royalty, they got watered down enough to survive – the swords became spades and the cups became hearts, like that. But the only card of the major arcana that didn't have to go totally underground for centuries was the zero card, the Fool."

"That's where the Joker came from!" Sam exclaimed. "I always wondered."

"Well, now you know. The other major arcana cards, though, the good fathers really wanted them obliterated."

"Tools of the devil," Arnie said with a smile. "Too bad they didn't realize what they were revealing about themselves with that attitude."

"Their fear?"

"Their envy. The devil is a misunderstood image, Sam. It makes people feel good to think of him as a supernatural embodiment of evil, but in fact he's the symbol – maybe unconsciously – but the symbol of people's envy at the power and independent minds of exceptional people. Better to dismiss such people as an imaginary horned spirit reeking of sulfur than to admit that some people have the power to make things happen, and the majority aren't among those people. When you think about it, it was inevitable that human cultures, the moment they became recognizably human, would begin creating a devil myth."

"Well, maybe it is just a myth," Sam said. "On the other hand, my feeling is that if you can believe in God, it's a little silly to say that you can't believe in any other intelligent being that you can't see or hear."

Arnie blinked once or twice. "Do you? Believe in God?"

"Well – I – Well, yes. I know you probably don't, but – ”

"My beliefs don't matter. You're quite correct that if one believes in God, it's quite logical to believe in the whole medieval panoply of spirits. Angels. Demons."

"Ghosts," Rita said. "Santa Claus."

"Hey," Sam said with a quirk to his mouth.

"The Easter Bunny," Rita said.

"Hey!" Sam cried in mock indignation, and they all laughed.

Sam finished his wine. "You know, it tastes weird at first, but it really does kind of grow on you, doesn't it?"

Rita took command of her father's car after dinner, telling him that she was going to drive him home and then take Sam to Schuyler to retrieve her tarot cards. Her father, getting out of the car, simply raised his eyebrows and tapped his watch.

"He doesn't give you any more grief than that?" Sam asked as he slid into the front seat and shut the door.

"Well, I'm an adult. And he's not the 'As long as you're under my roof' type, thank God. And anyway," she flashed her sly smile at him, "it'd be pretty hypocritical if he were, given his lady friend."

"He has a lady friend?" Sam's tone was mischievous and delighted. "Is she a professor too?"

"Secretary from some department, I think. I only met her once. All I know is, she's the reason I have the house to myself a lot of Wednesdays and weekends. I owe her big time."

Sam smiled a little, stretched out his legs, looked at the quaint houses sliding by, replaced by stores and fast-food restaurants, replaced by campus buildings. When he asked, "What's goin' on here, Rita?" she started a little.

She said nothing, steering the car around a corner, then, "What's goin' on where?"

"Come on. We had a good time on our first date. At the party, you acted like I was a grabby little kid annoying you, you threw beer on me, you flirted with every guy in the room. Last time I talked to you, you were with another guy. Then tonight – ”

"So we had one good date and that means we're married?"

"No. But we had one good date and then you all of a sudden treat me like you don't want me around. I think that deserves an explanation. Then tonight – ”

"I don't see why I need to explain –”

"I figured you probably wouldn't even come to dinner with Arnie and me. I damn near fell over when you got in the car. And you were quiet during dinner, but friendly. I mean, I know your different looks by now, and you weren't looking at me like you wished I wasn't there. I just want to know what's going on."

She pulled up in front of the hall and stopped. Sam took off his seatbelt, but continued to watch her. She sat silent for a moment, looking straight ahead, then shrugged.

"Just – lousy taste in men. If a guy's nice I screw it up. Nothing to do with you."

"Well, yeah, it does have something to do with me, since I'm the one who's being yanked every which way."

"Yeah. You're right." She still wouldn't look at him. "I just meant, you didn't do anything wrong."

He nodded, glanced out his own window, looked back at her. "Who gave you that black eye?"

"I fell down."

"Bull. Who gave you that black eye?"

"Oh, will you just leave it alone? It's no big deal."

"It's a big deal, Rita. When my dad was a beat cop, he got called all the time on domestic things that started out with a punch and just kept escalating as time went on."

"He won't do it again, OK?"

"These guys always say that. You should know better, Rita. There's no reason to protect – ”

He broke off so sharply that she actually looked over at him.

"I don't want – It's not – Your dad didn't do it, did he?"

She laughed with vehemence and scorn. "No!"

"I mean, nobody likes him more than I do, Rita, but if he's doin' crap like this he needs help."

"It's not Dad! For God's sake! It was Lucian, OK? Now can we drop it?"

Sam nodded again. "I thought so."

"What do you mean, you thought so? You just accused Dad!"

"I figured that'd make you tell the truth. What happened?"

"We just – We just got into it a little."

"'Got into it'?"

"We were at his place, fighting about something, I don't even remember what now. He grabbed my arm and it hurt, and I jerked my arm up to get his hand off me and accidentally hit him in the face with his own hand. It was kind of funny. So I laughed. And he punched me. And I got up off the floor and told him what I thought of him in two words and left. He's called me to apologize about four thousand times, and he wants to get back together, but you're right, Sam. Guys who think they can solve things by hitting someone don't change just like that. So we're through. That's why I'm saying he won't do it anymore, ’cause I won't be with him anymore."

"Did you call the police?"

"For one punch?"

"Yeah, for one punch, Rita! You think you're the first he's done that to? You don't report him, make him take the consequences of his actions, he'll do it to the next girl. Or – or guy," he said, as if something had just occurred to him.

"Well, then, let her have the hassle of going to the cops. It's mostly healed up now, they wouldn't care anyway."

"They would. Believe me, Rita. They would care. What they – ”

"I'm not gonna do it, Sam," she said with finality. "I don't want to. I'm out of it. Other people need to take care of themselves."

Sam shook his head. "You won't even take care of yourself, and you expect other people to take care of themselves?"

"I only have the one problem. Screwing over nice guys. Or – ” she smiled a bit – "OK, not screwing nice guys. Believe me, I take good care of myself except for hooking up with jerks."

"Why do it, then?"

"I don't even know." She thought for a moment. "Maybe they're exciting?"

After a moment he said, "Well, are they?"

"At first. Lucian was. Maybe I just like pissing off Dad."

"Oh, well, that makes sense. Hook up with someone who treats you like crap and maybe hits you. That'll show your dad."

"Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense." She gave him a sidelong look. "Maybe you could reform me."

"You know, Rita, there's something about being humiliated in front of a roomful of people that just kinda kills your interest."

"Yeah, I don't blame you. I just – after Lucian – I am so in the mood to try for a nice guy, though."

"Well," Sam said. "We could go out. See how it goes. Take it slow."

She laughed. "Like we were taking it fast before?"

In one fluid motion, she undid her seatbelt, turned and leaned toward Sam, and slid her arms over his shoulders. He hesitated, then leaned toward her with clumsy suddenness as she brought her mouth to his, lips parted, tongue inquiring.

A moment later she spoke, smiling against his lips. "That's taking it fast." 

He slid his hands around her, gripping, and kissed her hard. She ran her hands up his back, made a little sound of impatience in her throat, pulled the back of his shirt and T-shirt out of his pants and ran her hands along his bare back.

It was Sam's turn to growl a bit, lowering his head, sucking and nibbling on Rita's neck. His hands went up under her blouse and she writhed under his large palms and long fingers. He moved closer sharply, ground his hip against the storage-space console between the seats, and mumbled "Ow" against her neck.

She laughed, then asked in his ear, "Do you have someplace we could be alone?"

Sam made a noise that was almost a groan. "My roommate has no social life, so unless – ”

Then he raised his head. "I crash at my brother's place. Uh, sometimes. We could go there, but we might run into him or some of his housemates in the living room. Would that bother you?"

"'Course not. I'd love to see Dean again."

"Oh. Um. Before we go there, could you swing by a drugstore? This isn't how I expected this evening to go."

Rita's lips quirked. "And yet for some reason I came prepared."

"You did? Well. OK. Get back onto 14th and turn left."

They were in luck, actually; no one was in sight when they walked in. Dean's clothes were on the sofa he was using as a bed, and one of the two showers upstairs was running. It was earlier than Dean normally showered, but Sam wasn't about to look gift privacy in the mouth.

As Rita closed the bedroom door, Sam asked, "Can I get you – something?" with the hesitation of a bachelor trying to remember if there's anything fit for consumption in the kitchen.

"Hell yeah," Rita said, and literally jumped on him, wrapping her legs around him.

He laughed, grabbed her, backed up two steps and collapsed on the bed. She kicked off her shoes and undid the knot of his tie with deft fingers while his hands enjoyed the curve and springiness of her butt. She took the loose ends of his tie in her hands and pulled his face toward hers. 

His helpless grin faded as she did that, and his hands moved further up her back to clasp her shoulders. He kissed her face where the marks of the bruise showed, very softly. "I won't hurt you," he whispered, smoothing her neck, kissing her again and again as her eyes closed and her neck relaxed, her body melting into his. "Never hurt you. Just make you feel good."

She gave a deep sigh and rolled with him, letting him take over, looking up at him with intensity as he undid the buttons of her blouse.

Rita was gone when Sam woke up at 9:00 Sunday. He looked disconcerted until he saw that she'd written "CU Soon" on the bedroom mirror in lipstick. He looked at it for a minute, smiling to himself.

Then he showered and dressed quickly and headed downstairs. Gordon was nowhere evident. He crossed paths with a sleepy-looking Andy in the hall. Travis was sitting at the kitchen table, his head propped on one hand, coffee and an industrial-sized bottle of aspirin in front of him. Sam bid him a soft, "Hey, Travis. See you tonight," as he grabbed a cinnamon roll, and made sure to close the front door gently.

The garage door was open, as was the hood of the Impala parked inside. Dean, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, an Egg McMuffin and coffee on the workbench by the car, was leaning over the engine when he heard the front door close, and looked around.

Sam seemed to meet his eyes reluctantly. "Oh. Hey, Dean."

"Hi, Sam. Saw Rita on her way out. We talked for a couple minutes."

"Oh. Good."

"So. You and Rita, together again for the first time, huh?"

"Yeah."

"You think – that's a good idea? I mean, considering last Saturday – ”

"Yeah, I remember last Saturday. She made a mistake. She's not with that guy anymore."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "That was fast."

"He hit her, OK? She realized her mistake and she felt like crap and we got back together. Now is there anything else you'd like to know about our personal lives?"

"Sorry, Sam. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Yeah, well – ” Sam appeared to be trying to maintain his indignant look, but a grin kept breaking through – "I'm OK. I'm not hurtin'."

Dean smiled back. "Well, OK. See you tonight. Um – if you're not gonna be here you'll give me a call and let me know where you are, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes, waved goodbye, and headed down the street.

Dean, watching him go, mumbled, "Oh by the way, I'm gay," smacked his forehead smartly, and turned back to the car.

When Sam walked into the hall, Ash was on front-desk duty, talking to a pretty blonde. Sam waved at him, then stopped and did a double-take just as Ash said, "Well, there he is, the man himself."

The blonde turned toward him with a shy smile, and his jaw literally dropped.

"Hi, Sam," she said.

"Jess?" he gasped.

“I couldn’t even think about it,” she was saying a few minutes later. They were sitting in two of the chairs on the front porch. “I kept thinking that if I didn’t want to see you – and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to – but if I didn’t want to do that, the very least I could do would be to write you a letter to say thank you. And I couldn’t even make myself think about it long enough to do that. I’d sit there in front of a blank piece of paper with a pen in my hand for twenty minutes, and then think of something else I really needed to do.”

“Totally understandable,” Sam said.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not after what you did for me. I was so terrified. And when he ran off, I was so scared you were going to run after him and get shot, or that you’d leave. And you didn’t.” Her eyes were tearing a little. “You stayed there and you talked to me while I threw a fit. And then I didn’t even write you a note. But I’ve really been thinking about it – well, for three weeks, but especially since that poor girl last Saturday. That could’ve been me. That would’ve been me. And this morning, I decided, I’m going to look him up, put on my clothes, march down there, and thank him in person like a civilized human being.”

“I was happy to do it,” Sam said. “Really, you don’t need to kick yourself like that. It – OK. This is embarrassing, I haven’t said this to anyone. But it was kind of nice to feel like a hero.”

“Well, you were one. And I’m not one of those googly girls who’s always mooning over heroes. But you were one when I needed it.”

“‘Googly girls’?” Sam repeated with amusement.

“You know what I mean. ‘Ooh, he made the winning touchdown!’ ‘Ooh, he picked me up, he’s so strong!’”

Sam chuckled. “I know what you mean. I was seriously nerdy in junior high, and a little pudgy to boot. In eighth grade I started getting taller pretty fast, and for awhile I was nerdy plus crashing into things. A phys ed teacher suggested I try out for basketball, and it turned out I was pretty good at it. By sophomore year I was used to my height, playing soccer and basketball. We moved to Wichita before my junior year, and what you call ‘googly girls’ were always coming up with reasons to talk to me. I felt like, hey, if you’d known me two years ago you wouldn’t have paid any more attention to me than they did in Lawrence, but I’m the same person, y’know?”

Jess gave him a wry look. “Try being a flat-chested thirteen-year-old who develops real fast over the summer.”

Sam laughed, but with sympathy. “Oh, man. Yeah. I’ve got to admit, I probably woulda been one of your googly guys.”

“That would’ve been OK. I was pretty nerdy myself. I started a poetry club in high school. I was so in love with Edwin Arlington Robinson.” 

“I was never really into poetry, more science and science fiction. But there was this one poem we read in high school that I always remembered. The moment I read it, I thought, Yeah, I want to be the guy taking risks and doing things, I don’t want to be one of the people standing around on the sidelines acting superior. I forget who wrote it, but I always remembered lines about, ‘Poor fool! He plunges for the sunken crown / And we – we wait for what the plunge may show.’”

“‘Well, we are safe enough. Why linger, then? The watery chance was his, not ours. Poor fool!’ That’s ‘The Sunken Crown,’” Jess said with a smile. “It’s an Edwin Arlington Robinson poem.”

“You’re kidding. Hm. I should’ve paid more attention during poetry units.”

She laughed and said she should have paid more attention in science class, and they talked about the scientists who’d recently trapped antimatter in a cylinder for a fifth of a second. They talked about computers and classes, their favorite music.

“Would you – ” Sam said, and stopped as if remembering something.

Then he proceeded. “Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?”

A shadow went over her face. “I don’t really like going out at night, these days. I haven’t done it since then.”

“Well, yeah. I can understand that.”

“I’m giving myself a month to get past it, and then I’m going to go out at night one way or the damn other.”

Her tone was fierce, and Sam smiled at her. “I bet you will.”

“I’m, um, I’m free for lunch now,” she said.

“Lunch?” Sam pulled out his phone and did a double-take. “It is that time, isn’t it? Want to walk over to the Oread and have a sandwich?”

“Sounds good.”

“Do you have a bunch of girls around that you could go out at night with?” he asked her as they rose. “I bet you’d feel safer with a group of girls than alone or with just one guy. Where do you live?”

They didn’t stop talking until they started eating, and there was no strain in their silence.

Someone else was using the communal study desk they’d put in the suite’s central room, so Cas was sitting at his own desk, the top of his head dangerously close to the loft bed under which the desk was tucked, when a knock came on his closed door.

“Come in!” he called, resting a finger on the paragraph he was reading.

He looked mildly surprised when Sam opened the door, and more surprised when Sam closed it again.

“I want – I want to ask you a question,” Sam said fast, “and I know it’s none of my business and you don’t have to answer, but it’s really been bothering me.”

“Ohh-kay,” Cas said guardedly.

“Did Lucian ever hit you?”

Cas’ face went still for a moment and he blinked.

Then, “Not me, no. Has he hit someone else?”

“Yeah. You remember my friend Rita? They – She – Anyway, she was over at his place, and he punched her in the face. Gave her a black eye.”

Cas sat back, shaking his head, his book forgotten. “Did she call the police?”

“No. I tried to argue her into it. She refuses.”

“Too bad,” Cas said simply. “It would probably be the best thing for him. I always had the feeling – I brought him to our home over Thanksgiving weekend last year, and he got into a fight with one of my brothers, I mean a physical fight. Now there was shared guilt there, but Lucian’s – he’s – volatile. Very volatile. I always had the feeling he was going to hit someone he was intimately involved with someday.”

“Someone he was intimately involved with? Wouldn’t that mean you?”

Cas looked rueful, avoiding Sam’s gaze. “I didn’t, you know, I didn’t really kid myself very often that I was the only one. I made sure I was, you know, well protected.”

Sam looked down with honest hurt and outrage, and Cas still couldn’t look back at him. “Why would you stay with someone like that, Cas? I don’t get it.”

“Someone said once that I have a thing for trying to save people. I don’t know. There’s something, it might, I don’t mind anger. At certain, well, that’s neither here nor there.”

Sam took a three-count to work on that, then blurted it out untactfully. “Anger turns you on.”

Cas shifted in his chair, searching the floor as if for a trap door.

“No big, Cas,” Sam said. “I mean, everyone’s got buttons to push. You just need to find someone intense who gets role-playing. And who also gets how great you are.”

Cas rubbed a temple with his fingers. “And to cap off the day, I’m getting sex advice from a sixteen-year-old.”

A chill made Sam’s tone lofty. “Thanks, Cas. I do you the favor of treating you like the exceptional person you are, and all you can do is complain about superficial stuff like age.” Then, an abrupt descent to adolescence: “And anyway, I’ll be seventeen in two weeks! And sorry if I embarrass you, but I think it’s more embarrassing that a great guy and a great friend lets himself get kicked around by a total peasant. There’s gotta be some intense smart guy out there who’s, uh, nice.”

A faint smile passed over Cas’ face. “Well, maybe there is.”

Sam looked at Cas with sudden realization. “You’ve met someone like that. Haven’t you?”

Cas hesitated, drew a breath, and then finally looked up to meet Sam’s gaze. “You think I just move from man to man, don’t you? I’m not that kind of girl.”

Sam tipped his head back and laughed, then left with a wave.

Caption of a front-page picture in the University Daily Kansan:

Garden City freshman Rachel Novak, dressed as an angel, talks with a couple in front of Wescoe Hall. Novak wore the angel costume to all of her classes Wednesday, her birthday. She said she thought it would be a fun way to celebrate, and that “Having fun is serious business.”

Gordon was sitting at the kitchen table typing furiously on his laptop computer, stacks of books, papers, and power bars in front of him, when Sam got in for the evening. “Hey, Gord,” he said, going to the refrigerator for a soda. “How’s the essay going?”

Gordon had stopped typing. “Going good. Nice picture of you in the paper today.”

“Me?”

Gordon pulled the newspaper out from one of his stacks and slid it across to Sam. “Didn’t you pick one up?”

“No. Crap.”

The unidentified couple with whom Rachel was talking was Sam and Jess. His arm was comfortably around her and they were both smiling.

“Now, your lady Rita’s only been around so often in the last ten days or so,” Gordon said with definite humor under his matter-of-fact tone, “but it seems to me like her hair’s grown long awfully fast.”

“Crap,” Sam said again. “MA15, or whatever idiot was pretending to be him, started after me when I got my name in the paper. Now it’s not only a picture of me but – ”

He stopped, and Gordon looked up. “Not only you but – ”

Sam hesitated, looking down at the picture, then looked at Gordon. “Not only me, but I’m all smiling and happy looking. I hope the jerk doesn’t start in again. I might really have to leave. It’s not just me I’ve got to worry about.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Gordon said, as Sam cast another glance at Jess’ picture. “Matter of fact, I’d love a chance to get at one of those assholes. My sister was attacked one time.”

“God, Gordon, that’s awful. Is she OK?”

“OK, but I don’t know if she’ll ever really be the same. I shine it on around her, but I’d really like – ”

He stared at the laptop screen, his jaw tight.

After a moment, Sam said, “Well, anyway, thanks for showing me this.”

Just a flicker of a recovering smile. “Thought you might like a heads-up before Rita sees it.”

“Oh, crap,” Sam said with an entirely new inflection, albeit a thoroughly unexceptional vocabulary. “I was so busy thinking about – psychos – I didn’t even – I think it’ll be OK. I doubt if she reads the student paper.”

Gordon gave a one-shoulder shrug. “You’ve got hot and cold running blondes, more power to you. But you best believe one of them is going to find out about the other pretty soon.”

“It’s not like that. I mean, it’s not like Rita and I have any sort of – I mean, about three weeks ago she dumped me at a party and went off with another – and Jess and me, we’re just friends, really.”

Gordon’s glance flickered over the paper. “Well, I’m kind of insulted that you don’t consider me a friend. I mean, you never put your arm around me like that.”

“Shut up,” Sam said, taking the paper and leaving, as Gordon cracked a fast grin and then got back to work.

Sam swung open the door to the room he was using, to be greeted by a glare from Dean, who had his cell phone at his ear.

“Think I could have some privacy in my own room for a phone call?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Sam said, and backed out, re-closing the door.

“Sam.” Dean ground the name into the phone. “I love my brother, but I swear I’m gonna break his face before too much longer.”

“Why don’t you try working out a schedule,” Cas asked, “he gets the room for a week, and then you?”

Dean thought for a moment. “Nah, it’s not that long until the end of the semester. And anyway, that’s not what’s really bothering me. It’s like he’s jerking around two girls – and I’ve gotta tell you, Rita’s not my favorite person, but come on, be a man. If you want to break up with her, do it. If you don’t, stop chasin’ someone else. There was one time freshman year when I was dating a girl – still trying to convince myself it could work, y’know – and I was getting pretty hot and heavy with a guy from math class. When I started sleeping with the guy, I broke up with the girl. And I really liked her, but you don’t do that to people! Plus, if he says ‘As Arnie said in class yesterday’ one more time, I’m gonna barf all over him.”

Cas’ voice was amused. “Well, that would get your point across.”

“That’s why I haven’t told him about me, you know, about being gay. Hard to have that conversation when you want to break the other guy’s face.”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“You think I’m just making excuses.”

“I think if our places were reversed, you’d be making clucking-chicken noises about now.”

“And that’s why I love you, Cas – ’cause you wouldn’t do that kinda thing.”

A moment’s pause on the phone. Then Cas said, “Anyway, a little wait isn’t bad just now. I got tested for HIV today.”

Dean, who normally fidgeted when on the phone, went completely still.

Before he could say anything, though, Cas continued, “I don’t have any symptoms, I really think I’m perfectly healthy. But I was talking with – with a friend of mine, and told him how careful I’d been with Lucian, knowing – well, knowing Lucian. Ever since then I’ve been thinking, being pretty sure that I’m healthy isn’t good enough for you. I want to be absolutely certain I’m not putting you in any danger. I should have the results in the next couple of days.

Dean clutched the phone, staring ahead, thinking.

“I really think the results will be good,” Cas said after a moment. “But knowing – who I’ve been with, and all that – if you felt like reconsidering our situation, I’d – ”

“No, are you kidding?” Dean’s tone was explosive. “I mean, yeah, we’re gonna have to think about how we handle it if you’re positive, ’cause you might need someone to take care of you someday and I couldn’t do it if I was sick myself. But if you mean, do I never want to see you again because you loved a promiscuous douchewad at one point, forget it. Just forget it. We – I’m gonna keep hanging around. At least, I want to. If you want me to. OK?”

A pause, then Cas cleared his throat. “OK,” he said quietly.

“OK,” Dean said, as if the third iteration sealed the subject for all time. His tone calmed considerably. “Actually, I had a scare a few months back. A guy, a – guy I knew, called me and said he was positive. God, I can’t tell you how scared I was – not just to get tested, but that someone who knew Sam would see me at the Student Health Center and, you know, magically figure out why I was there. But of course I went. And it turned out I was fine. God, that was a great day. A great week. And since then – well, my sex life has sucked anyway. Prob’ly not a good way to put that.”

Cas laughed softly.

“Y’know, first I was scared, then I wasn’t finding anyone interesting. Then I found the world’s greatest guy, but he’s playing hard to get.”

“It probably means,” Cas said, “that he loves you too.”

Dean closed his eyes and caught his breath.

“I should, I really need to get back to work,” Cas said.

“Yeah, me too. And I need to vacate the room so Sammy can get some sleep.”

So they only talked for another half-hour.

Sam moved comfortably between the burgundy-colored sheets of Rita’s bed, drawing one hand up along her body while he kissed her neck and breasts. “I’ve gotta write a note to your dad’s girlfriend sometime,” he murmured, “thank her for giving us time alone.”

He felt her tension an instant before she said, “Better yet, write one to my spineless mother. If she’d stuck around, he wouldn’t be out banging secretaries.”

He paused to look at her face.

“Sorry,” she said. “If I hear one more commercial about ‘Get your wonderful mother a wonderful present for wonderful Mother’s Day,’ I’m gonna puke.”

He rolled over to lie alongside her, but kept one hand caressing her almost consolingly. “What happened?”

“She left.” Rita took a quick breath. “Pretty much the whole story. The whole time I was growing up she kowtowed to Dad. He wasn’t mean to her, but you know how he is. ‘I’m not sure I would have picked pork chops as a dinner for the department head.’ And she had two reactions – either, ‘Oh, I’m sorry dear, I’ll do better next time,’ or crying and saying, ‘Nothing I do is ever good enough for you!’ She never got the guts to just stand up and say, ‘Screw you.’ And that’s what Dad needs, someone with some resistance to them. She just buckled under for eighteen years, and then took off. Two years ago, just before Thanksgiving. Great timing, right?”

“She didn’t even tell you?”

“She called from Kansas City, told me she was leaving for the sake of her sanity. Drama queen. Cried and asked me to come with her to Boston. Come on. I was a freshman, just making friends in the dorm. It was like she was asking me to choose between her and Dad. Thanks a lot, Mom.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ve always felt like I got cheated, growing up without a mother. But I think it would be worse to know what it was like to have one and then to have her taken away.”

Rita was blinking fast, her face taut. “Sucks.”

“I’ve always been kind of jealous of Dean – you know, he gets along a lot better with our dad, and he at least has a few memories of Mom. I was six months old when she died, I don’t remember anything.”

“How’d she die?”

“House fire. I think the house was a fixer-upper, inexpensive, and Dad was gonna see to things like the wiring and stuff. But he was either at work or tired a lot of the time, I guess, like now. He got home late one night and the living room was full of smoke and he could hear Dean crying upstairs. He grabbed me out of my crib, handed me to Dean, told him to get me outside and not look back, then he tried to get Mom out. But it was too late.”

There was a silence.

“Do you ever talk to your mom?” Sam asked. “Or visit?”

“She calls sometimes. I talk a little. But visiting – no.” Her smile came back, with a wicked glint to it, and she pitched herself up on one elbow. “When I get gone, it’s gonna be to L.A. Want to come?”

“Maybe,” he said with an answering smile. “Are you going into the movies?”

“Who knows? Whatever we do, it’s got to be more exciting than Kansas.”

“Yeah, it’d be fun. The problem is, there’s this stuff called money.”

She lay back, still smiling. “Not a problem.”

“Yeah? You got hidden millions?”

“Not me.”

Sam gave her a disbelieving look. “Your dad?”

“Mom had this heirloom desk, she kept stuff she wrote in it and mementoes, things like that. Right after she left Dad burned it all and moved the desk down to the basement. For a while I think he just ignored it. Then one day I saw him take something out of his pocket. It looked like a diamond. He headed downstairs, and I heard the drawer of Mom’s desk opening and closing. I think he’s stashing investment diamonds there. Maybe gold. That’d be like him, to be prepared for bank failures.”

“Yes, it would.”

“What he doesn’t know is that I’ve had the spare key to that desk since I was a little girl. So. I haven’t touched it yet. You know he’s gonna have some kind of trap there, a hair on the desk drawer or something like that, so he’ll know if someone’s been in it. So I can’t take stuff out a little at a time. But pretty soon, some day when he’s gone, I’m gonna clear out everything in that desk, convert it to cash as fast as I can, and be on my way to sunny Southern California.”

Sam gave her a look that mixed amused disbelief with disapproval. “Steal from your dad?”

“Not stealing. Having the force to will to do what’s necessary in furtherance of my ambitions. Right?”

“Well, but – that’s – ”

“Are you saying I’m not exceptional enough? The rules for the masses apply to me?”

“Oh, come on – he doesn’t – I mean, you know – ”

Rita burst into laughter, rolled over and nuzzled Sam’s stomach. “Isn’t he adorable? Isn’t little Sammy adorable?”

“Hey!” Sam grinned, mock-struggling with her. “Not Sammy! Sam!”

“Wittle Sammy – He’s so cute – ”

He rolled her over onto her back, pinning her wrists to the mattress, and she gave a high-pitched coo. “Say Sam.”

“Or what?”

“Or – or a lot of foreplay and no orgasm.”

She snorted. “You’d never make it stick.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right. OK. Call me Sammy again and I’ll call you Reety.”

“No, that’s not the real threat. The real threat is calling me by my full name.” She uttered the name with contempt, growling the Rs. “Margaret.”

“Margaret’s not such a bad name.”

“Neither is Sammy. If you’re eight years old.”

“Yeah, point taken.”

She rolled her eyes. “Everyone called me Meg growing up. In junior high I discovered there was a nickname for Margaret that wasn’t a character out of Little Women, and I started insisting that everyone call me Rita. I wouldn’t answer to anything else.”

“Rita suits you. It sounds like, it sounds like something intoxicating.”

“You think so?” She raised her head to nip at his earlobe. “Sammy?”

“Yes, I do.” His hand slid under the covers. “Meg.”

She smiled darkly. “Y’know, I don’t really care what you call me. As long as it’s not Jessica.”

He stopped moving completely. “What?”

“Awhile ago. You were pretty excited, and you said, ‘Jessica.’”

“No way.”

“What, did I just make up the name? Who is she?”

“She’s just, she, she’s a girl I knew, once.” He grew somewhat indignant. “Oh, come on. That happens to people sometimes. Doesn’t it?”

“Mm. The moment I say, not me, I’ll probably do it.”

“I am sorry.” He was kissing her breasts again. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”

She looked at the top of his head affectionately. “You didn’t hurt me. Just pissed me off a little.”

He lifted his head. “How can I make it up to you?”

Her eyes lit up. “Well. Let’s see.”

She had several suggestions.

At 9:30 the next morning, Rita pulled up in front of Schuyler. Sam gave her a kiss and a smile, hopped out of her car, and was pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he walked across the lawn when he stopped at the sight of Dean sitting on the front porch.

Looking as though he didn’t whether to be annoyed or worried, Sam moved quickly. “Dean? I was just about to call, tell you I made it home safe. Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, fine. I had something I wanted to talk to you about face to face.”

Sam dragged another chair around to face Dean. “Sounds serious.”

Dean opened his mouth, closed it, smiled. “Serious, but not fatal. I just, I wanted to – and you probably know this anyway, not reason for any – I’m gay.”

At the sentence’s abrupt conclusion, Sam’s head jerked up a little and his eyes opened wide. There were a couple of seconds of silence.

“Well,” Dean said, “I guess I did surprise you.”

“Not really. I mean, not so much – Not like it’s obvious or anything. A brother is just around a lot, you know? I’ve been pretty sure since your senior year. But dude! You actually, finally said it! That’s what I can’t believe!”

Dean stared at him for a moment. “My senior year?”

“Yeah. I kind of wondered before that, but you and Patrick were such good friends, and then he got real involved with that girl Lia and you hated her guts. I mean, I could tell that even you knew there was no real reason for you to dislike her so much, but it was like you couldn’t stop yourself. You and Patrick – were you – ”

Dean shook his head. “He was straight. Unrequited love. I mean, I’d had a couple – but they weren’t – I loved him. And I couldn’t tell him I loved him and I couldn’t tell anyone else. That was a pretty miserable year.”

“I’m so sorry, Dean. I wish you would’ve talked to me then.”

“Sam, you were – like, thirteen. What could you have done?”

“I could’ve been supportive. And I could’ve told you that a lot of gay people end up in good loving relationships. See, when I started suspecting I was worried, so I did a lot of research.”

“Of course you did.”

“Dad saw it on my desk and tried not to show how freaked out he was. I told him it was for a class project. Then he was going to freak out at my teacher, so I had to tell him it was all my own idea. I told him I’d change the topic and he pretty much calmed down. Except after that, he looked at me weird every time I wanted to go to the theater.”

Dean started laughing. After a few seconds, there seemed real danger that he would never stop. “I’m so sorry, man. I had no idea any of that was going on. You probably should’ve just told him.”

Sam looked a little shocked. “After all the times you stood up for me when I pissed off Dad? All the help you gave me dealing with jocks when I was a social reject? I’m not perfect, but I’m not an ingrate, and I knew you didn’t want him to know. Um – so – are you planning on telling Dad?”

Dean’s laughter abated. “Planning on it. Don’t know exactly when yet. Or how.”

“I think, just say it straight out. You know he doesn’t like pussyfooting. Do you want me to be there? For moral support?”

“No. I think this is a talk we need to have between us. I appreciate it, though. Um – speaking of telling Dad – I knew you really hated it when I told Dad about MA15 sending you stuff, and I wanted to explain, but it just seemed like it was best to drop the subject. But you understand, I was afraid your life was in danger. I’m still pretty worried about it, to be honest. All I could think was, if that freak – if – anything happened to you, and I’d had a chance to do something beforehand and didn’t – I’d never forgive myself. Dad would never forgive me. And we’d both be right.”

Sam nodded. “After I thought about it for a while, I kinda got it. Even though it wasn’t MA15, and I don’t think whoever it was had the will to follow up on anything.”

“Whatever. You coming over tonight? Or are you gonna be at Rita’s?”

“Probably over at your place. Why, you need something?”

“No. Just wanted to get it worked out. I’m not going to be there myself.”

“OK. – Oh?”

Dean gave an oddly shy boyish grin. “Yeah, ‘Oh.’ Anyway,” his eyes flicked toward the front window of Schuyler, “I’ve gotta make a phone call.”

Sam looked a little confused. “You want to come in and make it?”

“No. Nah. I’m gonna – ” Dean rose. “So – we’re good? You’re not traumatized having a gay older brother, or anything?”

“Enormously. But I’m stifling the emotion.”

“Good man. I’ll see you, I guess, some time tomorrow.”

Sam watched his brother walk springily across the lawn, waving back at him from the sidewalk with a huge grin as he lifted his phone to his ear. Sam grinned back, shook his head a little, still looking surprised. “I thought he’d never actually say it,” he mumbled.

From the sidewalk half a block away he heard a whoop. He looked over, but the joyful outcry hadn’t been meant for Sam. Dean was standing still, his left fist in the air, his right hand still holding the phone to his ear. That momentary celebration was strictly between Dean and whoever was talking to him. Sam, looking quizzical but happy, relaxed back in his chair.

Then he sat forward with an intrigued expression on his face. “Cas?” he murmured.

Then he sat back again. “Nah. Fix-ups never work,” he mumbled, and stretched his legs out in front of him.

At 7:30 that night, Dean raised a glass of beer and murmured to Cas, “Here’s to modern medical science. Fast action on good reports.”

Cas clinked his beer glass against Dean’s. “You were right. I’m gonna feel great for a week. And I wasn’t even really that worried.”

By the way they’d dressed, they seemed like a study in contrasts. Cas wore a dark button-down shirt, open at the throat, and dark slacks; Dean wore jeans and a bright blue Jayhawks T-shirt that showed the musculature of his shoulders and arms. But both were obviously freshly shaved; Cas’ usually unruly hair was combed and Dean’s nails looked like they’d been cleaned ruthlessly; and both sported ridiculously wide grins.

Dean took a big drink, glanced over at what he could see of the Friday night crowd at Paisano’s from their corner booth, and said, “OK, let’s see, it seems like there’s something left. We’re both healthy. I told my brother I’m gay. It seems like there’s one more thing – Oh, that’s right. Something about an incentive.”

Cas’ smile took on a wicked quality. “Your place or mine?”

“Uh, well, actually.” Dean put his beer down. “This is cheesy. But I rented a room at a motel a couple blocks from here.”

Cas raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know if I’d say cheesy. It’s extravagant.”

“Yeah, well, not saying we should do it every night or anything, but – Tonight I didn’t want to worry about keeping our voices down or anyone walking in unexpectedly or stuff like that. I just wanted us both to be able to relax.”

With a little nod, Cas pulled out his wallet. “It does sound good. How much do I owe you?”

Dean, digging into his lasagna with the fork in one hand, waved dismissively with the other. “My idea, my treat.”

Cas looked discomfited, shot a look at the tables across from their booth, leaned forward. “I don’t want you to pay for the motel room. I’d feel like a prostitute.”

Dean swallowed his food, and his sensual mouth angled with a risque smile. He leaned forward too. “Well. That’s a fantasy we’ve got to explore sometime. But in the meantime, don’t worry about it.” He picked up his beer glass again as he said smugly, “I think I make a little more working part-time at the garage than you do working a few hours a week at the bookstore.”

Cas raised a severe eyebrow. But he waited until Dean had tipped his glass to say, “And of course anyone seeing us would assume you’re the hustler.”

Dean made an explosive sound, clapped his glass on the table and began thrashing around. Cas looked again at the nearby tables, this time with an expression indicating that he had no idea who this barbarian was.

“Beer up my nose, beer up my nose,” Dean gasped.

“I’m paying for dinner,” Cas said calmly.

Laughing and blotting his eyes with his napkin, Dean nodded.

Cas dropped his trench coat on the back of a chair and turned as Dean shot the chain bolt of the door. Dean met his gaze and stopped in the act of unzipping his leather jacket.

“Damn,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I’m shy. I’m never shy.”

Cas’ smile burned in his eyes but barely curved his mouth. “Well. This is an interesting development. I think we should analyze it.”

He went to Dean, toeing his shoes off in the few steps it took, removed Dean’s hand from the jacket zipper and slowly ran the zipper down himself. “When did you first begin feeling this shyness?”

Dean swallowed as Cas slid his hands under the jacket and then under the T-shirt. “Just – now. God, your eyes are blue. You don’t realize how blue unless you’re up close.”

One of Cas’ hands was sliding under the waistband of Dean’s jeans. “And why do you suppose you’re feeling this shyness now?”

Dean closed his eyes, opened them, and clutched at Cas.

With a deft movement, Cas eluded him, grabbed the back of Dean’s neck and kissed him hard. 

Then he let go and pulled completely away. “No, I think we have to discuss your sudden lack of assertiveness.”

Dean took a fast step and grabbed Cas, pulling him close. “You want assertiveness?” he asked, and grabbed Cas for a forceful kiss as his right hand ran down the back of Cas’ buttock, pressing Cas’ leg forward and bracketing it with his own.

Cas gave a gasping grunt. Dean pulled out of the kiss to look at his face. Cas was panting with a cross between laughter and overwhelming desire. 

“Oh, you do, don’t you?” Dean said with a grin.

The rest of their communication was non-verbal.

Sam woke up at 7:30 that morning. Since it was a Saturday, he gave Dean’s clock a disgusted look. Then he shrugged and slid out of bed.

He dressed, went to the kitchen and drank a short glass of orange juice, grabbed a banana, and ate it as he walked to the scholarship hall.

A block away he noticed something dangling from a tree in front of the hall, turning slowly in the late April breeze.

“Damn,” he said, and broke into a run.

It was a papier-mache puppet, about 18 inches long, in the shape of a very skinny person. There was no decoration except for a paring knife stuck completely through the effigy’s torso, and the thread tied around the branch at one end and around the effigy’s neck at the other.

“Damnation,” Sam said.

He pulled hard enough on the thread to break it. Holding the puppet’s string, he turned in a full circle, looking carefully all around him.

He stared at the effigy for a moment. The newspaper used was probably the UDK or the Lawrence Journal-World. The string and knife looked like they could be obtained at any discount retailer anywhere.

“Probably not even bought specially,” Sam mumbled. “Probably stuff sitting around the guy’s apartment for years.”

He shook his head, sighed, and headed indoors, pulling his phone from another pocket.

When Cas woke up Dean was lying awake, staring at the ceiling with concentration, his hands behind his head.

“What are you thinking about?”

Dean stirred, seeming a little surprised, looked over at Cas. “It’d kind of freak you out.”

Cas sat up. “I don’t scare easy.”

Dean’s smile went one-sided. “I noticed.”

He took a breath, trying to dodge Cas’ gaze, and couldn’t. “OK. I was thinking about whether to change my major from just plain geology to hydrogeology.”

Dean was very serious, and Cas muffled his chuckle. “And this would freak me out because – ”

Dean sat up too. “Well, let’s face it, Cas. One of these days you’re going to be a professor, Ph.D. and tenure and everything.”

Cas looked a little confused, but followed along gamely. “That’s if I get hired by a college. On a tenure track. I’m not sure I’ll progress that far.”

“I am. No question. Now, right now I’m majoring in geology ’cause it’s interesting and my dad really wants me to get a degree. But you know what I’m really interested in?”

“Cars.”

“Cars. Not just sitting at a computer drawing designs, but actually working with them. I’ll tell you what I’ve been kind of thinking, the last year or so. Wrap up my degree a semester early, go to work for Bobby Singer at the garage, and eventually, when he retires, buy it from him. I don’t think he’d have any objection to my thinking that way – in fact, I think he’d kinda like it, he and Karen don’t have any kids.”

If the sudden gravity in Cas’ eyes was any sign, he was beginning to catch on, but he simply continued to follow Dean’s lead. “Well, that sounds like a good plan.”

“Yeah. But. What if – I mean, I don’t think you’re up for a real closeted relationship.”

“Absolutely not.”

“So to begin with, you’re going to be bringing a guy to meetings and faculty stuff, whatever, and I know that’s not the career-killer it used to be, but I’ve gotta believe it’s not gonna be a big help either. But then on top of that, this guy’s a mechanic. Your career’s going to be with teachers and intellectuals, and probably a lot of your social life too, and you’re going to have to introduce all of them to a guy who works at a garage. I mean, I know that shouldn’t matter, but it does. So I’m thinking, if I got a specialty in geology I’d be more employable, and then you could introduce people to a hydrogeologist or whatever.”

Cas’ breath was coming in deep bursts, as if he were suppressing emotion. But he just swallowed and said, “I see.”

“And I’m sorry if I freak you out by thinking so long-term, but I can’t help it. I swear to God, Cas, since the night we met I haven’t been able to picture my future without you. It should freak me out, but it doesn’t. I just know that I always want to be with you. But I don’t want to be a disadvantage to you. And don’t – I’m just telling you how I feel. I realize you might not feel the same way, or anyway not be ready for anything long-term, it’s just – ” Dean made a face and a wild shrug. “You asked.”

“I did,” Cas said.

He was quiet for several seconds, still breathing in short bursts. “Are you OK?” Dean asked.

“Yes. I’m just trying to organize –

“Do you know when the first time was that I realized I always wanted to be with you?”

Dean’s eyes opened wide, an almost child-like vulnerability. “You – When?”

“The night at ECM. You spent two hours with people you’d never met before, who were – well, to begin with I’m pretty sure their politics are to the left of yours, some of ’em are even left of me. And you just – You were so involved, you knew about things I didn’t know you were into, you asked intelligent questions about the things you weren’t into, you made people laugh. When you went to the bathroom, Pamela looked at me and said, ‘Oh, he’s a keeper,’ and I said, ‘We’re just friends,’ and she looked at me like I was out of my mind. Then you were so insistent on helping that woman, the one who turned out to be a cop, you just were not going to let her be in danger as long as you were standing there. We had such a great talk going home and when you kissed me – ”

He broke off, pressed the base of his palm to one eye.

“All I could think was, how’d I get so lucky?

“Yes. Your being a mechanic might be a problem if you had no intellectual curiosity, or if you had contempt for academics or were intimidated by them. But that’s just not you. You read and you think, and you’ll keep reading and thinking. And yes, the political thing is real, and there might be people who – who dismiss you, or dismiss me for being with you. But I have to tell you, Dean, I’ve never had much use for those kinds of people anyway. If my career depended on them – Well, I’d just have career trouble, even if I’d never met you.

“And don’t forget, the reverse applies. You’re going to have to introduce a nerdy teacher to Mr. Singer and anyone at the garage you hang out with.”

“Bobby won’t have any problem with you at all. He’s smarter than I am.”

“I actually doubt that, Dean. You always underestimate yourself.”

It was Dean’s turn to take a deep breath.

“The only problem I can see,” Cas continued, “is that if you’re going to own a garage in Lawrence, that pretty much restricts my job-hunting to this area. But there’s not just KU. There’s Haskell, Baker, colleges in Kansas City. I could teach high school, write, translate. There are a lot of things I could do. We’ll work it out.”

Dean pointed at him. “Remember I said this. This is not just me being Pollyanna. Tenured Professor of Religion. At KU. In fifteen years.”

Cas laughed. “I like your optimism.”

“Yeah? I know what you like.” With a grin, Dean pulled Cas down.

Then he sat bolt upright. “Damn! What time is it?”

The clock was on Cas’ side of the bed. “Seven-forty.”

“I’m supposed to be at work at eight.” Dean thought about it for a moment. “I have the feeling I slept through the alarm.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

“’Cause I overslept by an hour? Who hasn’t done that?”

“Everyone’s done that. But don’t you have to get Andy’s car back to him?”

“Aah, the amount of stuff he’s borrowed from me, he can wait awhile more for his car. I’ll tell him I was in bed with an incredible guy. I’ll tell the world.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Cas said, his hands moving. Dean made a throaty sound.

“But speaking of telling people,” Cas said, “I almost slipped up and told Sam we were getting close the other day, and I just thought – Even since you came out to him, do you still want to keep our relationship secret from him? Your call.”

“Nah. Let’s face it, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, he’ll figure it out anyway. If nothing else,” Dean said, just before his mouth busied itself otherwise, “he’ll get the gist when I propose to you on the Jumbotron at Arrowhead Stadium.”

Dean was singing – or perhaps more accurately bellowing – “Enter Night!” as he threw open the house’s front door. He stopped at the sight of his brother, who was sitting on the living room sofa with a box at his feet. Specifically, he stopped at the sight of Sam’s face. “Sam?”

Sam sighed a little. “Can you keep Andy’s car long enough to run me to the Police Department?”

Dean swore. “What’d he do?”

Holding it carefully by the string, Sam pulled the papier-mache effigy out of the box. Dean swore again. “That was here?”

“No, no. It was at the hall, hanging from a tree. I put it in a box and brought it here because I wanted to catch you when you got home.”

Dean sat down. “You want me not to report it to Dad.”

“You know, it just struck me when you walked in – This is really an unfair burden to put on you. If I don’t want Dad told, I should just keep my mouth shut. But I really want your opinion. I told Dad – ”

He broke off, and Dean nodded. “You said you’d tell him anything strange that happened. That was one of the conditions of your staying here.”

Sam nodded. “On the other hand, that was three weeks ago. There’s only two weeks left of classes now, then one week of finals, and I’m back in Wichita. I really don’t want to have everything I’ve done this semester just thrown away.”

“You’re assuming Dad would make you leave.”

Sam raised his head. “I’m assuming he’d try, and I’d refuse, and there’s be a huge fight ending in a courtroom.”

“You think Dad would kill you? Oh, no, I remember. You were going to be an emancipated minor.”

“I’m seventeen day after tomorrow, Dean. I think I’d have a real good chance. But it would be a major distraction while I’m trying to get ready for finals.”

“On the other hand, if you don’t tell him, you’re breaking a promise to him.”

“Not really. I mean, I never actually said the words, ‘I promise.’”

“Gimme a break, Sam.”

“Look, I know you worship Dad and all. That’s not a slam; it’s great you feel that way. Maybe because I’ve butted heads with him so often, I’m more objective. Dad has a really narrow focus on physical safety. Being a cop is perfect for him, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he understands what’s important.”

“You think that he doesn’t think you’re important?”

“He thinks my being safe is important. I mean, to begin with he thinks that someone who hides behind scary letters and dolls with knives stuck in them is going to want to actually go face-to-face with me. This guy’s obviously a whining coward who’d shrivel up if I gave him one good solid punch. But even if he weren’t – I don’t think – Dad doesn’t realize that for someone like me, physical safety isn’t, really can’t be, a top priority.”

“Really.” Dean’s voice was dangerously cool. “What is the top priority? For someone like you?”

“Come on, Dean. Don’t be like that. You know what I’m saying. I think I could make some kind of difference, you know, help people. Do something for society. But I can’t do it if Dad keeps me safe by cutting me off from the – the development, the education, the experiences I need. If he does that – well, I mean, if he wipes out what I could’ve been and done, well, what’s the point in my being safe? All nice and safely coddled?”

Dean’s eyebrows were up. “‘Experiences’ you need to have? Like being dishonest with your dad? Is that like, I can screw one girl and chase after another because exceptional assholes like me need to have that experience?”

“What the hell does Jess have to do with this?”

“Only ‘Jess’? Not Rita? She doesn’t get a mention even though she’s the one giving it up – ”

“She doesn’t – She gets – Dean.” Sam’s tone went from carefully intellectual to pleading. “I think I love Jess. I mean, really love her. But I can’t break up with Rita.”

“She got a gun to your head?”

“I told her I wouldn’t hurt her. The first, the first night we were together, she was still healing up from that black eye Lucian gave her. You know her, she’s all kinds of tough on the outside, but she’s had some crap happen in her life, and she was hurting that night, I mean emotionally. I told her I would never hurt her. And then – ” Sam shook his head. “The next morning, the next morning! I met Jess. And we just – clicked. We feel the same way about things, we have the same sense of humor, we – The only major difference is that she makes the same face you do when I talk about Arnie’s class.”

Dean looked approving, but said nothing.

“And contrary to what you think, I haven’t been chasing her. She, it’s more, she’s – ” Sam was half-grinning, damn near blushing – “she’s really been chasing me, kinda. But I don’t try to stop her. I admit it. I’m just – I want to be with her all the time. All the time. But I told Rita I wouldn’t hurt her. I mean, how can breaking up with her two weeks after we starting having sex not hurt her?”

Dean leaned back in his chair. “Well, OK. Yeah, this is more complicated than just, ‘I’m hot stuff, I’ve got two women.’ But Sam, do you think that seeing Rita when you think you’re in love with someone else isn’t hurting her? You think she doesn’t know there’s something else on your mind, maybe someone else on your mind?”

Sam’s gaze shifted. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“And I don’t get how in your mind it’s not good to go back on your word to Rita but OK to go back on your word to Dad. Dishonesty’s dishonesty.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you’d know about that. With your many girlfriends. Maybe you should come out to Dad before you start lecturing me about honesty.”

Their gazes locked.

Then Dean stood. “I’m gonna go up, take a shower, change clothes, and get to work,” he said, and headed for the stairs. “Get yourself to the police station.”

“Dad doesn’t understand what ‘people like him’ need!” Dean was roaring a half-hour later. “This psycho sends him threatening letters and a smoke bomb and a dummy with a knife in its heart, and Dad’s the dumb one, for thinking the psycho might be dangerous! And you know what he means by ‘people like me,’ right? Those exceptional history-makers who deserve everything they can lay their hands on! Y’know, Sam’s always known he was smart, but he’s never been like that about it before. Arrogant. Dad’s too dumb to know what Sam needs. And MA15 would just shrivel up in a ball if Sam glared at him right. Sometimes I want to punch Sam. And then go find his damn professor and do the same.”

Bobby watched as Dean wrenched the cap off an oil reservoir and glared at it as if Arnie could be found inside. Then he said one word. “Idjit.”

Dean tried to smile. “You’re a lot more concise than I am.”

“Not him. You. Idjit.”

Dean looked over in wounded astonishment. “What’d I do?”

Bobby lifted his head from the engine of the next car over. “When did your brother start buyin’ into this professor’s horse manure?”

“Beginning of the semester. No, wait.” Dean stood straight. “He’s liked the class since the beginning of the semester, but he didn’t start quoting him like it was the Gospel of Arnie until – I dunno – a few weeks ago?”

“About the time that psycho started stalking him?”

“Yeah.” Dean drew the syllable out thoughtfully. “So you think – Arnie’s ideas help him make sense out of something insane?”

“I think it’s simpler than that. The boy’s scared to death, Dean. And about the time someone starts scarin’ him to death, someone else starts tellin’ him that if you’re just smart enough and have enough will power, no one else is a match for you. He might not even realize himself that that’s why those theories sound so good to him, but I’d give ten to one that’s why.”

“He doesn’t act scared. He hasn’t said he’s scared.”

“Would you?”

Dean looked rueful. “You’re right. I’m an idiot. What do you think I should do?”

Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s anything to do but wait it out. The psycho will get caught, or he’ll get bored with harassing Sam. You said Sam’s going to work over the summer, and he’ll have other teachers next year. Maybe someone he meets along the line will be a philanthropist, and Sam’ll swing the other way.”

“That’d actually be a lot more his speed.”

Bobby leaned over again, said, “Um,” hesitated, and straightened to face Dean. “Do you – Does Sam know how to handle a gun?”

Dean swallowed. “Yeah. Dad taught us a couple years ago. But we don’t have one. You think he should?”

“Nah, forget I asked. Dumb idea, arming a 17-year-old with a bad case of nerves. Although, from what you tell me about Sam – ”

After a moment, Dean smiled a little. “This is a job for the expert. Dad knows guns, he knows the situation, and he knows Sam. I’ll bring it up with him. Casually. As casually as I can without convincing Dad that Sam’s pinned down under fire somewhere. I’m going to go in the office and make a call, if that’s OK.”

“Sure. There’s a box from West Virginia in there. Bring it out when you’re done, would you?”

When Sam answered his phone, Dean let out a little puff of breath as though releasing tension he hadn’t known he felt. “Hi. Fighting aside, I just wanted to make sure you got to the station OK.”

“Of course I did.” The automatic defensiveness in Sam’s tone mellowed. “Sorry I said, you know, I’m sorry. I was outta line. I know it was hard for you to tell me that, and I just threw it in your face.”

“Well, if that’s the worst thing anyone ever does to me, I’ll be lucky. So, what’d they say about the dummy?”

“Not much yet. There’s more to examine than just a letter. Detective Henriksen’s got an errand on campus, he’s going to drop me at Schuyler.”

“Great. Hey, why don’t you come by a little earlier than usual tonight? We’ll order a pizza, watch some TV. Unless you’ve got other plans, you know.”

“Sure, I’d like that. I’m supposed to call Rita tonight, but we don’t have anything planned. How about you?”

“Oh. No. He has a load of homework to get done by Monday. He’s kind of a studious guy.”

Sam chuckled. “Opposites attract.”

“Yeah, whatever. Um, Sam, by the way, just – you know, you’ll figure this out at some point – it’s Cas.”

A moment of dead silence.

“You still there?”

“Um – yeah. I’ll be damned. When you told me yesterday, I thought about suggesting to Cas that he ask you out, and then I thought, fix-ups never work. I’ll be damned.”

“Well, you introduced us, even if you didn’t exactly fix us up.”

“I did, didn’t I? Huh. Well, anyway, I’ll come by about 6:30 tonight.”

“Extra anchovies, right?”

Sam made a strangling sound and disconnected.

Dean grinned, stood, picked up the battered cardboard box on Bobby’s desk, and went back into the garage.

“There you go. Is it for this?” he asked, looking dubiously into the very modern engine on which Bobby was working.

“Naw, different project.” Bobby set the box down; he’d already opened it, so he just had to fish something out from underneath an avalanche of Styrofoam popcorn and hand it to Dean.

Dean took it, looking astonished. “No way.”

“Thought you might have some use for that.”

“No. Way.”

Bobby cracked a little smile. “Not that amazing, really.”

“Bobby – man – this is great. This is great. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothin’. It’s a birthday present.”

Still looking astonished, Dean laughed. “My birthday was in January.”

“OK, so it’s a belated birthday present. You want it or not?”

“I want it, I want it. Bobby – thanks. You know what this means.”

“It means you better get back to work before you start cryin’ all over it and rust it out.”

With another laugh, Dean put the object back in the box. As he did, his expression changed, and he turned. “One more thing.”

Bobby looked at him quizzically.

“This isn’t real relevant to the garage, or anything. But I’ve spent a lot of time shooting off my mouth around you, and you’re a friend of mine, and I want to be honest from here on. So I want to tell you, I’m gay. Hope that’s not a problem.”

Bobby raised his eyebrows, slightly.

Then, “Huh. Well. Yeah, that explains some things.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. For all the talk about the girls, you never really seemed, I dunno, excited about any of ’em.”

“Hey, I really liked some of them.”

“And the others?”

Dean’s gaze and stance shifted. “The others I pretty much made up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like I say, I wanted you to know ’cause you’ve been a good friend to me. It’s not, I hope it’s not, going to affect my working here.”

“Damn right it’s not,” Bobby said. “If you think this means you get Mardi Gras off, you can forget it.”

Dean laughed, and said, “Darn it,” and got back to work.

“Back in a minute,” Sam called as he started up the stairs. “Don’t eat my salad!”

Hoots and cries of, “Yeah, we’ll try to restrain ourselves!” followed him into Dean’s bedroom. He grinned as he closed the door.

Rita’s phone rang so many times that Sam thought voicemail would pick up, but at the last moment he heard her voice. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hi, Rita. Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh, well, no, not really.”

“I’ve got a paper to finish for Major Brit Writers, so I’m just gonna stay in tonight. You want to do something tomorrow?”

“Oh. Um, no.”

“You OK?”

“Yeah. Great.” Her voice was sour. “I, um, listen, Sam, I’m on the road.”

“Want me to call back when you get home?”

“No, I mean – I’m leaving. Leaving town.”

Sam sat down on the bed. “When will you be back?”

“Don’t really know. I’m going to live with my mom.”

“Going to live with your mom,” Sam repeated; then, “What?”

Rita laughed a little dryly. “Yeah, kind of last-minute.”

“Two days ago you were telling me you wouldn’t even visit her.”

“I know. It’s, I’m just sick of things, you know? So I’m getting out.”

“Rita? Is it something I did?”

Her laugh was a little sad. “No, you egomaniac. Are you kidding? You’re the only decent guy I’ve ever been with.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “Then what made you so sick that you had to leave town?”

“You know, everything. My job. Dad. Kansas. I just decided to get out.”

He listened to her tone carefully, then shook his head. “No. Something happened. What was it?”

“God, Sam, you have got to stop. I mean it.”

“Stop what?”

“Asking questions. Prying around in other people’s personal stuff. You’re gonna find something, find something out that you won’t like. I got sick of the crap in Lawrence. I’m going to go see if things are less crappy in Boston. Satisfied?”

After a moment, “No. But I guess I’ll have to be.”

And after another moment, Rita said, “Sorry. Should’ve told you. I just – decided and went. You know me.”

“You need anything done here? Need me to tell anyone else, or send you anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Well. I hope things work out for you.”

“I’ll call you when I get there.”

He gave a little eye-roll and head shake, but simply said, “Sure. That’d be great.”

“Study hard!” she said cheerfully.

“Take care of yourself, Rita,” he said seriously, and she disconnected.

He sat on the bed staring at the wall for a few minutes before he went back down to eat pizza and salad.

The next day, a Sunday, was quiet, sunny and cool. Sam called John to tell him about the effigy he’d found. John sounded grave, but agreed that pulling Sam out of classes with only three weeks left in the semester might not be necessary. Then he got on the phone with Dean and held a long discussion about watching out for his younger brother, during which the brothers took turns making faces and exasperated gestures.

Dean immersed himself in the Impala’s innards. Sam, after a phone call, walked up the 14th Street hill, across Jayhawk Boulevard and between the serene stone buildings lining the street, and then down the other side of the steep hill into the bowl-like glade with Memorial Carillon rising from its highest point and Potter Lake rippling at its lowest. He dropped down on the grass and leaned back comfortably, watching people studying and couples canoodling among the trunks of dozens of mature trees.

“Ooh, cute guy!” a girl’s voice said behind him. “Maybe I could get his attention with food.”

He looked up and around with a smile at Jess, who was wearing jeans and a KU hoodie that clung to her curves, and extended a hand that she clasped as she sat down. “You would never need food to get a guy’s attention.” Then, eyeing a large brown paper bag she had, “But if you happen to have some, it couldn’t hurt.”

She laughed and ripped the bag to create a fairly flat surface on which she put two sandwiches and a bunch of grapes. “Peanut butter, lettuce and mayonnaise,” she said, putting one of the sandwiches in front of her and handing him a bottle of tea.

“Sounds good.”

“Peanut butter and banana,” she said, handing him the other sandwich.

“You. Are an outstanding woman.”

They ate and talked, but Jess kept drifting out of the conversation, looking at people and trees as though she didn’t really see them.

“Are you OK?” Sam asked. “You seem kind of preoccupied.”

“I am, a little,” she said, looking at him with a smile.

After a moment he asked, “Anything I can do?”

And after another moment she looked him in the eye and said decisively, “I was trying to figure out if now’s the time to tell you something or not. And I think it is.”

Sam looked as though he were bracing himself. “OK.”

“This isn’t a break-up thing. I mean, it’s kind of the opposite. I wouldn’t talk about this if I didn’t feel kind of serious about you.”

“Well, then, I can handle it.”

“I don’t want to have sex yet.”

He gave a startled chuckle. “I can’t tell you how great it is that I never have to ask you, ‘What do you mean by that?’”

“I just don’t – want to be in the situation where, you know, we’re kissing goodnight, and we both get carried away, and then I’m saying, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna, oops, sorry, ’bye.’”

“Well, I appreciate the warning, but I could deal with it if you did. I’d deal with it in anguish, but I’d deal.”

“I had this relationship in high school. We just jumped the gun, we weren’t ready. And I wound up getting really badly hurt. I just decided, after this, even if it seems right, I’m going to wait until I know for sure. And if the guy’s not interested in me anymore because of that – ” she shrugged.

“Then you know for sure it wasn’t right.”

“Yeah. Exactly. Hope that’s OK.”

“I actually think it’s a good idea. I was – I – ”

He hesitated, and she looked at him curiously.

“I was – dating this girl, one time, and we got – real involved. There were different reasons for it – partly I felt kind of sorry for her, partly – well, you know – ”

“Yeah, I do,” Jess said ruefully.

“But no sooner did we start, you know, getting physical, than I met this other girl, this – this great girl.”

“Oh?” Jess sounded as if her interest had suddenly been piqued.

“Well, I didn’t want to dump the first girl, like – Hey, that was great, but I found someone better now! But I couldn’t bear to stop seeing the second girl either. And I kept thinking, if I’d just cooled my jets for a little while longer, I wouldn’t have felt, I wouldn’t have felt like I had a choice between being a two-timer and a jerk.”

“Um-hm.” 

“Anyway, just to say, I think you’re right. Better to wait until, until you’re really sure.”

“Mm-hm.” Jess eyed him over her tea bottle. She took a sip, then asked, “What happened to the first girl?”

“She dumped me.”

“And what about the second girl?”

“I’m hoping – she’s the type who appreciates honesty.”

Jess smiled at him. “Well, Sam, it’s not like we ever said we had an exclusive relationship. A couple of guys have asked me out since we got to know each other.”

“Oh. Oh, well, yeah, see. Not exclusive. That’s cool.”

“The problem is – I mean, besides my not wanting to leave the dorm at night – the problem is that everyone else is so boring compared to you.”

“Oh,” Sam said again. “Well, see, now, I don’t see that as being a problem.”

She laughed.

“So your finals project,” Sam said. “Which topic did you decide on?”

When they finished eating they threw out the paper bag and grape stems, then headed up the hill to the Union, where there were recycle bins for the bottles.

“Oh,” Sam said, stopping suddenly. “Awkward.”

He was looking at a wiry middle-aged man wearing jeans and a dark jacket, who was learning against a street lamp further down the hillside road that led to the stadium, apparently lost in thought.

“That’s Arnie,” Sam told Jess. “His daughter – ” he glanced at her – “His daughter just left town real abruptly yesterday. I think maybe they had some kind of fight. Pretend I don’t see him, or say hi?”

“Say hi,” Jess said. “He looks like he could use a friendly face.”

At that point the decision was made, as Arnie looked over and saw them. Sam smiled and waved, starting toward him.

“Sam,” Arnie said, straightening and walking a couple of steps toward them. “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too, Arnie. Out for a walk?”

“It’s a good day for it. Obviously,” he said, glancing at Jess.

“We were just going to the Union. Arnie, this is Jess Moore. I’ve told her a lot about your class. I keep insisting she’s got to take it next year.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Jess said with a smile, pulling back strands of her long blonde hair as a May breeze blew them across her eyes. “Sam’s a big fan of yours.”

“Well. I’m something of an admirer of his, as well.”

There was a second of silence, and Sam said, “Rita – called me. Last night.”

Jess shot Sam a quick look; Arnie gazed at him more fixedly. “She told you that – ”

“That she was going back to live with her mom, yeah. I just – I thought I’d ask if you’re OK.”

“I’m disappointed, of course. I did my best to teach her a different way of looking at life, but apparently she prefers her mother’s way.”

“Or – Her mom lives in Boston, right? Maybe she was just wanting to live in a big city. I doubt if it had anything to do with you personally.”

“I hope not,” Arnie said. “A daughter is unique, you know. It’s not like a relationship with a girlfriend, who can be changed at will.”

Sam looked like he was trying to figure out what to say. Jess raised her eyebrows slightly as the wind blew her hair into her face again.

Arnie brushed the hair off her face with his fingers, his palm briefly caressing her cheek, gazing at her face. Jess started and pulled away.

“Oh! Sorry,” she said, brushing her own hand over her face as if unconsciously. “I’m really jumpy these days.”

“Is it finals? Or some other cause?” Arnie asked.

“It’s – you know – sometimes you just – get jumpy.”

“I apologize if I unnerved you. Rita wore her hair long when she was a child. She was always impatient when the wind blew it, batting away at her face with both hands. I tried to teach her how to clear her eyes gently.”

Sam smiled a little. “I can see her doing that. Arnie, let’s get together for dinner this week. My treat.”

“There’s no need for that, Sam.”

“No, I want to. I mean, get together and make it my treat. Besides, it’ll be a learning experience for you, knowing how lowly students eat.”

Arnie smiled a little. “Very well. Talk to me after class tomorrow, Sam, we’ll set it up.”

“Sounds good.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Jess.”

“You too, Professor. Have a good day.”

A few yards away, Sam murmured, “He is really down.”

Jess brushed her hand over her face. “Well – all of a sudden he’s got an empty nest – it makes sense.”

They finished climbing the hill to the Union, tossed their bottles in the recycle bin, and spent a while browsing in the bookstore. Sam introduced Jess to Cas, who was working at the counter. Then the two went downstairs to the bowling alley (Sam won, by a small margin). They got soft drinks at the snack counter and wandered up to the main level. The big main room filled with tables and chairs was pretty quiet except for a couple of people at a long table passing out literature about the Innocence Project, a few texters and laptop typers, and a young woman – a rather advanced music student, from the sound of her – playing the piano.

After listening for a while, they walked across campus and up Daisy Hill, where the five big red brick dorms strung along Engel Road were backlit by a pink-and-gold sunset. They got chicken quesadillas at The Studio, the eating place in the center dorm that was open late, and emerged into a chilly darkness mellowed by dorm and street lights.

“It’s night,” Jess said with a tone of slight wonder.

“Yes, Jess. You see, the Earth does this thing called rotating – Oh! You mean – ”

“First time I’ve been outdoors at night since then.”

“OK. Well, it’s only a couple blocks to McCollum, and I’m right here – ”

She smiled, touched his arm. “It’s OK. I’m not afraid. I was thinking how pretty the sunset was awhile ago, and it didn’t even make me think I had to get home soon.” She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “I think I’m past it.”

Very gently, he wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.

“If he’d, if he’d got me – ”

“Ssh.”

“I’d still be huddled up, I don’t know where, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’d have still worked your way through it. It would’ve been harder, but you’d have done it.”

“But I didn’t have to. Because of you.”

“I wish – Don’t – ” Sam shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

She put her arms around his waist. “I don’t feel obligated. I feel lucky.”

“Well, then, that makes two of us.”

They finally managed to pull away from each other when they stepped into the tiny foyer of McCollum Hall’s front door. Jess entered the code to get into the dorm, stepped inside, and waved at him from the other side of the inner glass door.

His phone started ringing just as he walked into his room at Schuyler. “I’m alive.”

“Good to hear,” Dean said. “Are you coming? ’Cause if Dad calls and I have to stammer around again for a half-hour telling him you’re in the bathroom, he’s gonna think you’ve got something wrong with your plumbing.”

“I’m at Schuyler. I’m just going to pick up my books and some clothes for tomorrow.”

“Well, get on over here. I’ve got something to show you.”

“Something fun or something – Drat.”

“Drat?”

Sam picked up a thick deck of cards that was among numerous objects littering a tabletop in his suite. “Rita’s tarot cards. I never got them back to her.”

After a moment, “Are you OK? About her?”

“I’m OK. Jess and I should be together, and even if I’d never met Jess, I have the feeling that Rita and me wouldn’t have been forever anyway.”

“Just from the few times I met her, I wonder if Rita and anyone would be forever.”

“See, that’s why I feel odd. She was kind of messed up, I think. And I don’t think she left town because she just hated things around here, I think something happened to her, something bad. And she wouldn’t tell me what it was. We were so intense, and suddenly she’s just gone, without saying why. I don’t even know where to send her tarot cards. It just feels weird.”

After a moment, Dean said, “Well, if you can’t get an address from her, burn those things. No kidding, Sam, they’re creepy.”

Sam chuckled, dropping down on a chair, looking at the Two of Cups. “Now see, Rita would say, hey, you’ve played with a regular deck of cards, haven’t you? That’s descended from tarot cards, well, the minor arcana cards anyway. It’s the major arcana you think are especially creepy.”

“Are those like Death harvesting people’s heads? And the guy hanging upside down by one foot? Yeah, silly me, thinking that’s creepy.”

“You don’t mind the zero card.”

“The zero card?”

“Yeah, the major arcana are numbered. The zero card is the Fool – that’s the Joker in card decks now. Then they go up to – Wait.”

“They go up to eight?”

“No, wait, hang on a moment.” Sam was looking through the deck as fast as possible, then stopped suddenly. “Major Arcana, the 15th card.”

Dean paused for no longer than it took to draw a breath. “MA15. What is it?”

“The Devil.”

“Interesting.” Dean’s tone was admiring. “You ought to suggest that to Henriksen, Sam. Can’t be worse than any of their other theories, and might give them a whole new line of investigation.”

“What, guys who recently bought pitchforks?” Sam laughed dryly. “That’d be what Arnie would say. He thinks the devil is actually an emblem of superior individuals. People love to call them evil and picture them as having horns and stuff because they’re envious, Arnie said.”

“Yeah, well, Arnie also said laws are only for people who don’t know their own limitations. Sorry, Sam, I know you like him – ”

“No, that’s not what he said. What he said was that that’s why society needs laws, because most people don’t understand what’s needed. Rita was going on like that too, like he was saying you could steal stuff if you were – ”

After a moment, Dean said, “ – if you were one of the exclusive elite, right?”

“My God,” Sam said softly.

“Sam?”

No response. “Sam, I can’t read your mind. Say something now or I’m gonna think someone’s got you at gunpoint.”

“No. No, they don’t – I – No way.”

“No way what?”

“Um. OK. When Rita said that, it was because she was thinking of getting into this desk Arnie has, he’s keeping jewels or money or something in it. She said she was going to do it ‘someday’ – but suppose she did it yesterday?”

“And found something stolen? How would she know – Wait. MA15 is thinking of himself as the devil – we think. Arnie thinks the devil represents exceptional people. If Arnie thinks he’s one of the exceptional people – ” The words tumbled from Dean’s mouth, he stopped to catch his breath. “You think Rita maybe found – ”

“This is dumb. There is no way it’s – ”

“ – like, a homemade branding iron?”

After a moment, Sam said, “You know, the only reason I’m even thinking this was because he had a kind of funny smile when he said the devil was a misunderstood figure. This is just – nerves. That’s what it is. I let a son of a bitch get to me and now I’m thinking everyone’s MA15.”

“Well, this would be real easy to disprove. He probably has alibis for at least a couple of the attacks. The last one was – it was the Saturday Cas held that party. Did Arnie happen to mention where he was that night?”

“No, we didn’t – we didn’t have dinner until – Wednesdays and weekends.”

“What?”

“Rita told me that Arnie had a girlfriend he stayed with a lot of Wednesday and Friday and Saturday nights. That’s why I was over there those nights. But she’d only met this girlfriend once – wasn’t even sure of her name.”

“Great family communication.”

“Yeah, but Dean, when I was researching MA15 I noticed that the attacks were all Wednesdays and weekends. Arnie’s classes are Monday- Wednesday-Friday; he doesn’t have classes the days after the rapes happen. Jess was attacked on a Wednesday. And that last rape, you just said, that was a Saturday.”

“Yeah, but MA15 was busy giving you a smoke bomb that day.”

“It was mailed the previous day from Topeka, Dean. MA15 wouldn’t have had to – ”

“Sam?” Dean said after a moment.

“Got your laptop open?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

“Look up the Capital City Conference.”

“OK.” There was clicking as Dean said, “What am I looking for specifically?”

“Don’t want to prejudice you. I just have a sick feeling.”

“On account of tarot cards and an unknown girlfriend? OK, here we go. Capital City Conference. ‘Kansas’ premier symposium for post-secondary educators – ’”

“Where and when?”

“‘Held annually in April, the Conference attracts speakers from across the country – ’”

“No, this year’s conference, when was it?”

“OK, calm down, it’s not right on the main page. OK. ‘Presentations from this year’s conference at the Topeka Conference Center on April 8th are available in print format and – ”

“April 8th. In Topeka.”

“Yeah,” Dean said somewhat impatiently, then made a hesitant sound. “OK, that’s a little – ”

“Arnie was in Topeka the day before I got a box mailed from Topeka.”

“You sure?”

“He talked about it. How attending it was a pain, but good for him politically. He was there.”

“But weren’t you having dinner with him one Saturday? Was that – No, the rape was the same day as the party.”

“We had dinner the Saturday after. Damn, Dean, all of a sudden this makes sense. I told him something was bothering me and he told me that fear and struggle are necessary in human development. I remember I thought, why’d he say fear? How does he know I’m not just having a family fight or a hard time in a class or something? I figured he was really insightful, to be able to see that I was afraid. Insight, my ass. He knew what was going on because he was doing it.”

“Sam, remember – ”

“And you know, I felt better around him, because he seems kind of invulnerable, not worried about anything! Like those exceptional people who drive ahead with their desires, no emotional connections, just dragging other people along with them! No wonder he admires those! He’s a freaking – ”

“Sam, you need – ”

“ – sociopath! And I’m sitting there eating it up, thinking he’s so great. You know, later, when Rita told me about the girlfriend, I thought, I must really be important to him, he gave up a Saturday night to have dinner with me.”

“Well, maybe you are, Sam.”

“Yeah. Or maybe he’d got his compulsion out of his system the Saturday before. Which pretty much makes me an idiot, as well as an egotistical asshat.”

“No, it doesn’t. Listen, you know I’ve never liked the sound of the guy, but we have absolutely no proof that he’s anything but kind of a jerk. I mean, you and Cas are about the only guys I know who stay home on Fridays and Saturdays. All kinds of people have access to tarot cards. Topeka’s a half-hour drive away, anyone could’ve mailed a package from there. Is there anything specifically weird about this guy? Like, did his wife die mysteriously or something?”

“No, she divorced him. Remember, that’s who Rita’s going to live with?”

“Oh, right.”

“He sounds like he was kind of a control freak with her, but that was just Rita’s – ” Sam broke off, then finished hurriedly, “Rita’s side of the story. Dean, remember what Dad said about when the attacks started?”

“Let me think. Yeah. New Year’s Eve, two years ago.”

“Arnie’s wife left him two years ago, just before Thanksgiving.”

Silence. Then, “Like a trigger.”

“Like a trigger.”

Then Dean laughed. “Listen to us. Even I can tell this is just two guys shootin’ the bull. And you’re the one who likes him.”

“Which is why I’m the one who’s been getting jerked around by him. God, Dean, I don’t know why I didn’t see it this afternoon.”

“You saw him this afternoon?”

“Me and Jess. He saw Jess, Dean. He made this weird remark about girlfriends being replaceable. For a moment I thought he was blaming me for Rita leaving, like Jess had something to do with it. And then he touched her face.”

“Jess’s?”

“Her hair blew into her eyes and he brushed it back, like stroking her cheek, and he was staring at her face. He said something about how he used to do that for Rita when she was little, and I wrote it off, like I’ve written off so much of what he said, I wrote it off, I assumed that he seemed weird because he was depressed about Rita leaving. But now I don’t think so. I think he wanted to touch her. I think he wanted to touch her in front of me. I think he wanted to imagine his brand on her face.”

There was a pause. Then Dean said, “Sam, I’ll tell you what. I’m gonna get a car, come on over, pick you up. Once you’re here, call Henriksen or whoever’s on duty. Just tell them the stuff we just discussed.”

“He’ll think I’m an idiot. Unless we can get some real proof – ”

“That’s their job, remember? And he won’t think you’re an idiot. There’s a couple of interesting points in there. You know what’s gonna happen. He’ll listen and take notes and say thank you for wanting to be of assistance, then in six weeks they’ll arrest a janitor with a garage full of trophies and violent porn.”

After a moment, Sam said grudgingly, “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m the older brother.”

“But Dean, I’m gonna call Henriksen from here. None of my roommates are here, and I just want to, I want this to be private, OK? This kind of sucks. I can get over there like I do every night, you don’t need to pick me up.”

“OK. But ASAP, all right? I really want to show you this thing.”

“Got it. Exciting thing. I’ll be there soon.”

Dean disconnected, looked down at his chemistry textbook, looked up at the wall and tapped his fingers thoughtfully.

Sam disconnected, stood, put on his jacket, stuffed his phone into a pocket, and left.

About fifteen minutes later, Dean tried to call Sam. The call went through to voicemail. Dean nodded and went back to studying.

Or tried. His eyes kept drifting from his book to his phone, lying on the desk beside the book.

With a sigh, he looked up a number on his laptop and punched it into his phone. “Hi, is Detective Henriksen there? Could I talk to him? I’m Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester’s brother. Thanks.”

And in a minute, Henriksen’s voice said, “Hello, Dean?”

“Yeah, hi, Detective. I don’t know if you remember, we met the night they found that smoke bomb in Sam’s room?”

“I remember. How can I help you, Dean?”

“Has Sam called you? Like, in the last fifteen minutes?”

“No, why? Did he say he was going to?”

“He – said he might.”

“Has he received another threat?”

“No. He, he was thinking – I think, maybe he had some questions for you.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Um, he’s on his way here. No big deal. I’ll have him plague you with his questions when he gets here. I don’t know why he drags me into it.”

“Well, I’m going to be here for awhile longer. If he wants to, he can give me a call.”

“OK, thanks. Have a good night. Well, as good as you can have at work.”

A smile in the voice. “You too, Dean. Goodbye.”

Dean disconnected, leaned his head against his hand. “Damn it, Sam,” he whispered. “Even if there’s any evidence there, they can’t use it if you break in to get it. What they can do is arrest you. And get you kicked out of college.”

He shook his head.

Then he mumbled, “What is that jerk’s name, anyway?”

He thought for a moment, turned back to his laptop. University of Kansas – History Department – Faculty – United States History. That narrowed it down enough so that he could scroll down a fairly short list of names, but he didn’t have to scroll far.

A.Z. Azel (“Arnie”) has been an associate professor at KU for six years. Before that, he was on the faculty of . . .

Dean nodded. “Great, now I know the name,” he mumbled. “Now how do I keep my brother from committing a crime against him?”

“Hi, Arnie, I’m glad you’re home,” Sam said cheerfully when Azel opened the door. Sam’s hands were jammed in his jacket pockets and he was breathing briskly, as though he’d been walking fast.

“Sam.” Azel, logically, looked puzzled. “Always a pleasure, but it’s a little late for entertaining.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I was hoping I could talk to you for a few minutes about Rita.”

Azel’s face went a little cold. “Rita made the decision to move back with her mother, not I. I can’t bring her back. She has a mind of her own, as I’m sure you know.”

“Oh yeah, no question.” Sam coughed quickly. “It was her reason for leaving that I wanted to talk about. See, before she left, she was telling me some stuff about you, and I was really curious to find out more.”

Azel stared at him for a few seconds. Then he said, “Manipulativeness doesn’t suit you, Sam.”

Sam coughed again. “Could I get a glass of water? I walked over here pretty fast.”

“Did Rita call you?”

Sam coughed. Azel’s head tilted, and he flashed a smile so sudden that it was disconcerting. “Well, obviously you can’t answer questions if you can’t breathe,” he said, and let Sam in, closing and locking the door behind him.

“Just water?” There was a trace of hostility in the tone, but the smile remained. “Or can I get you something from my private stock?”

“No, water’s good, thanks.”

Arnie went into the kitchen. “I really appreciate this,” Sam called after him. “I hate having a dry throat. Hydration’s really important, you know.” He coughed again as Arnie came back into the living room, where Sam was looking over figurine copies of Roman statues on the fireplace mantel. “Sorry to bother you at home, Professor Azel,” he yelled, then looked around to see Azel just behind him. “Oh! Thanks.” He took the glass, took a big swallow, then said, “I wanted to talk about Rita, but also about MA15.”

“Am I supposed to know what that is? Have a seat, Sam. You look tense.”

“I am tense,” Sam said, sitting on the nicely upholstered arm of a sofa, which made Azel’s smile dim a bit. “MA15’s been sending me threatening letters, sent me a smoke bomb once.”

Arnie sat down in a chair, looking up at Sam as though the height disparity in their positions amused him. “What is MA15? I thought you came here to tell me about something Rita said.”

“Arnie.” Sam looked down at him directly. “I have a hard time believing that anyone who’s been on campus the last couple of years knows nothing about a serial rapist who brands the faces of his victims.”

“Oh, yes. I knew there was such a person. But I don’t keep up with crime news.”

“Well, he began attacking women two years ago, New Year’s Eve. And you know what Rita told me? Your wife left you just about six weeks before that.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Arnie stood. “Get out of my house. Now.”

“You know, I was afraid – ”

“Not another word.” Arnie went directly to Sam, and was now the one looking down. “I don’t understand, Sam, if you’re upset about your grade or just – angry with me about Rita’s leaving, but this is just – a psychotic reaction.” He started toward the door.

“I wanted to go to the police,” Sam said quickly, and Arnie turned. “See, I was afraid you’d react like that. In a way I thought, if I was so worried about your reaction, I should just go straight to the police anyway with all this stuff. I mean – if you want me to – ”

They looked at each other.

Then Arnie crossed his arms, impaling Sam with his intense gaze. “What – stuff?”

“Well, the fact that you theoretically have a girlfriend that your daughter only met once. But you’re so involved with this gal that you’re away from the house a lot of Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I think it’d be interesting to know her. What’s her name again?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“No, I guess not. But it’d be interesting to see how many of MA15’s attacks occurred on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I know the last two happened on a Saturday and a Wednesday. That’s the kind of thing the police are real good at, coordinating people’s alibis with the time crimes took place, so you’re probably just going to tell me to go ahead and talk to them.”

“Not just yet.” Arnie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “This is interesting.”

“See, I thought so too,” Sam said with boyish enthusiasm. “Your desk down in the basement, that’s interesting. You didn’t know Rita had the spare key, did you? She thought you were keeping diamonds or maybe gold in there, you know, in case the banks all failed or something. Last – let’s see, yeah, it was Wednesday, you were out – she told me she was planning to get into that desk and see what was there. The next time I hear from her, it’s Sunday and she’s leaving town. I mean, flying out of town – she didn’t tell me, she didn’t tell anybody. And when I asked her why, you know what she said?”

“Obviously I don’t.”

“She told me to stop prying into other people’s stuff. She said I was going to find something I didn’t like.”

Arnie raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

“What did she find in that desk, Arnie? A branding iron? What was the glittery thing she saw you putting in there?” Sam made a dismissive gesture. “Not much point my asking you, the police could just ask her. I mean, she probably wouldn’t tell them, but then that might just make them curious enough to keep hassling her about it. And you know Rita, she hates hassle.”

Arnie broke into a whispery, unnerving laugh. “You know, I think I am going to tell you to go to the police. They’ll ask you if you’ve ever heard of probable cause before they kick you out, and you won’t have gained anything, from them or from me.”

“Well – From you?”

“I’m assuming you’re here to try to frighten me into giving you something.”

“Well, but – if the police would just kick me out, why would you give me anything?”

“A university faculty is very much like a small town. Even baseless rumors make the rounds fast, and can ruin a career. Anyone might – innocent or not – might find it worthwhile to stop a rumor in its tracks, providing the price was reasonable.”

“What does MA15 mean?”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask him. What do you want?”

“Well, first off, an answer to that question.” Sam stood. “You’ve been terrorizing me for a month while you were pretending to be my friend, I figure you owe me at least a straight answer to one question.”

Arnie laughed again, quietly and contemptuously. “Terrorizing. You don’t even know terror. I’ve never seen it in you.”

“How would you know? From seeing it in other people?”

“What do you want?” Azel snarled.

“I told you. I want to know what MA15 means. You won’t tell me. Guess stopping a baseless rumor isn’t as important as you said. Kind of dumb, for such a theoretically bright guy.”

Azel looked away from Sam for a moment, looked back, still smiling. “Insults are a pathetic way to get anything, Sam. I’d have thought you’d have learned that in grade school. Now tell – ”

“Oh, I’m pathetic?” Sam’s look of amused scorn matched Arnie’s. “I’m the one with actual girlfriends, and you’re the one who has to beat the crap out of them? I’m the one who stops a crime, while you can’t do anything but send whining letters and smoke bombs that fizzle?”

“You were terrified. You said it yours – ”

“I said you were terrorizing me. You think a guy like me is scared of a paper dummy with a vegetable peeler stuck – ”

“I think you should be.” Azel’s voice was quiet, his eyes glittering, and he was standing directly in front of Sam. “You know how easy it would have been for me to kill you a month ago, when I recognized you in class? And how much I wanted to? I never killed any of my girls, I take care of my property. But you? I could have shot you, beaten you to death –”

Sam snorted, looking down at Azel. “Sure you could’ve. Yeah, tell me about all those big muscular sophomore girls you did. That sounds exciting as hell.”

“You’d be – ” Azel stopped, tilted his head. “Is that what this is about? Do you want to hear about it?”

“I – ” Sam’s voice broke a little, and he cleared his throat. “No, I mean, nobody normal would want to hear that crap.”

Azel shook his head. “What have I been telling you for the past month, Sam? You’re not – ‘normal.’ You’re a young man with exceptional gifts, exceptional potential. What you desire may be out of the norm. But you need to understand your desires to become what you’re meant to become.”

“Even if it seems, you know, wrong?”

“You must stop framing every idea in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ Sam. What do you need?”

“Well – I need to, you know, hear about your girls. Um, what it’s like. What do you, y’know, say to them?”

Azel blinked a couple of times, touched a finger to his chin quickly. “Do you just want to hear about it? Is that really what you want?”

“Are you saying – ”

“Would you like to join me in my avocation? You’d need some patience, you know. For every night of actual enjoyment there are a dozen nights of finding a girl, understanding her schedule, choosing a site, finding a car. You have an organized mind, Sam. I have the feeling you’d be good at this. I could teach you everything.”

“That sounds great,” Sam said. “But right now, I just want to hear about it. The details. Like, that girl three weeks ago – Did you hit her? Or did she just go with you when you pointed the gun at her?”

Azel took a step back from Sam, looking steadily at him, the muscles around his eyes puckering slightly. Sam watched Azel’s face in return.

Then Azel smiled. “Have a seat, Sam. I have a notebook where I jot things down.” He turned to a side table with a drawer in it and opened the drawer. “It helps keep the memories fresh in – ”

Sam leaped forward and slammed the drawer shut on Azel’s hand. Azel yelled and crashed his left fist onto the bridge of Sam’s nose. Sam staggered for just a moment, but it was enough time for Azel to finish pulling a gun out of the drawer with his right hand.

Sam grabbed Azel’s arm with both hands, forcing the gun away from him, and Azel had to brace himself on the side table with his free hand to keep from being toppled.

“You’re recording this,” Azel gasped. “That’s why – not asking for anything. Give me the recorder. We can work this out.”

“I can’t,” Sam began as Azel’s free hand shot upward from the table to Sam’s eye.

Sam grunted and jerked away sharply, but kept his double grip on Azel’s gun arm, and the two spun crazily around the living room. Sam rammed Azel’s hand directly into the wall by the door; Azel yelled in pain and the gun went off; both recoiled from the explosion so close to them, and Azel dropped the gun.

He immediately struck Sam in the face again, and, enraged, Sam crashed a fist into Azel’s solar plexus. Azel doubled. Sam struck him again, and Azel went down.

Sam turned to lurch toward the gun on the floor near the door. Azel grabbed his leg and Sam’s own momentum sent him to the floor.

Azel started to stand. Sam rolled over and grabbed Azel’s ankle. Azel lunged and dropped to his knees, his full weight smashing into Sam’s ribcage.

Sam gave a sharp yell, then fell silent except for gasping sounds. He drove a fist into Azel’s gut and Azel fell but rolled, and Sam coughed up a little blood.

Azel scrambled to the fireplace, grabbed a poker and slammed it into Sam’s ribs. Sam made the loudest sound he could, raising his arms, a pleading expression on his face.

Arnie paused, smiling down at him. “Now that’s terror.”

He dropped down beside Sam, yanked Sam’s shirt out of his waistband and ran his hands over Sam’s chest. Sam struck him in the face, and Azel hit Sam in the eye with his fist. Sam’s head slammed back against the floor, his eyes glassy.

“Ungrateful little bastard,” Azel hissed, lifting Sam’s torso and running his hands over Sam’s back. He dropped Sam again.

“No wire. Just a recorder, then? I’ll find that downstairs. What was the idea, Sam? Blackmail? Or just being a hero with the police again? I should’ve known. Weaklings can’t be taught strength.”

Sam yelled, a startlingly loud sound, and gasped, “He’s going to kill – ”

Azel slammed Sam’s jaw shut with one hand and covered it with the other. “Don’t. Fight. Me.”

He stood and grabbed Sam’s ankles, dragging him to the kitchen entry.

“Called,” Sam gasped. “I called – ”

“Who? Rita?” Azel laughed. He stepped into the kitchen, opening a door and clicking on a light that revealed a descending stairway. “As long as I support her,” he turned to open a drawer and pulled out a roll of duct tape, “she won’t raise any questions.” He seemed to search the inside of the drawer briefly, shrugged and grabbed a large knife. “About you or anything else.”

Pulling tape from the spool, he turned and froze.

Dean was standing in the living room near Sam’s head, with Azel’s gun leveled at the professor’s chest.

“How did you get in?” Azel yelled.

Dean looked at him as if he couldn’t believe Arnie had chosen that of all things to say. “Door was open. Step away from him now and put the knife on the floor.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m his brother. I’m completely unexceptional. Get away from him or get shot.”

Azel took a step away from Sam, who rolled a little and coughed up more blood.

Dean looked down at his brother, but kept the gun in both hands. “Sammy? Hang in there. I’m gonna call 911.”

“No need,” Sam gasped. “Called ’em when I came in. Opened the door an inch when he was in the kitchen.” He made a little sound. “Hard to breathe.”

“You mean 911’s already hearing this?” Dean asked, and just then there was a very faint sound of a siren in the area.

Azel swore and raised the knife.

There was a bang and Azel jerked backward, dropping the knife as he crashed to the floor.

Only now did Dean move the gun to one hand, kneeling beside Sam. “Sammy? Was that true about 911?”

With effort, Sam tried to pull his phone out of his jacket pocket.

“Lie still,” Dean said. “Don’t try to talk.” He pulled the phone out himself and lifted it to his ear.

“Where’s he?” Sam said.

“Shot him. Hello? Is anyone there?”

“Good,” Sam said, and Dean smiled at the response he heard on the phone.

“There’s a guy with a gunshot wound,” he said into the phone. “And my brother, I think he got hit with a fireplace poker that’s lying in the other room.”

“Jumped on my chest,” Sam said.

“Great. The jerk jumped on his chest. He says he’s having trouble breathing.”

“You tried – to frame me.” Azel’s voice was scratchy and gasping also; he was pressing a hand to his chest under his right collarbone. “Frame me and blackmail me.”

“Yeah, you go with that,” Dean said. “Sammy? Hang in there, buddy. They’re almost here.”

“How’d you know? I was here?”

“What don’t I know about you? I called Henriksen, he said you hadn’t called. I knew you were going to try to get evidence some fool way. Looked up Azel and floored it all the way over here.”

“Floored it?” Sam smiled a little. “Andy’s car?”

“Oh. No. Wanted to show you, but I guess I’ll have to tell you. The Impala’s done, all but the interior. Bobby gave me the carburetor I needed yesterday. She drives like a dream.”

“Dean, that’s – ” Sam made a move, broke off with a groan of pain.

“Put down your weapon and raise your hands,” an extremely professional voice said behind Dean, and he did so, looking around to ask the police officers, “Is an ambulance coming?”

“Thank God you’re here,” Azel said weakly. “My student has some kind of obsession. I was saying anything I could think of to keep him from attacking me.”

One of the officers looked at him with a flat straight gaze. “Are you Professor Azel?” was all he said.

But something in his tone brought a trace of a smile to Dean’s face.

This is what happened in the early morning hours of May 2nd:

Dean stepped from the hospital hallway into his brother’s dim room, where John was sitting, elbows on knees, watching Sam’s sedated sleep. “Hey, Dad.”

John, apparently a little startled, looked over at him. “Dean. Good to see you, son.” He spoke as quietly as Dean had.

Dean pulled over the visitor’s chair from the other side of the hospital room, where an old woman was sleeping undisturbed. “Thanks for calling Ava, Dad,” he said. “She was really good.”

John smiled faintly. “I crossed paths with her a few times when she was representing a suspect. I knew she’d be – vigorous on your behalf. I wanted to be down there myself, actually.”

“Yeah, but there wouldn’t have been any point. I’m not a minor, they wouldn’t have let you sit in on the questioning. So you’d have been sitting in a waiting room somewhere while Sam was here without either of us. What I needed was a good lawyer to make sure I didn’t say anything stupid about shooting Azel, and you got me that.”

“She posted bail for you?”

“No bail. I’m just not supposed to leave town.”

John looked over at him. “Well, that’s a good sign.”

They both looked back at Sam, whose chest had a tube stuck in it that was connected to a hissing machine on the other side of the bed.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Don’t see why. This is my fault. I should have made him come home when I first found out about this.”

“Uh – I was at that conversation, Dad, remember? You reasoned with him, you yelled at him, you threatened to cut him off financially. I don’t know what else you could’ve done short of pulling a gun on him. He was not going to leave. And actually, the system we set up was working fine. He was the one who decided to go charging over to Azel’s house.”

“I’m still not – I don’t understand.” John drew a breath, but stayed hunched over, looking older than usual. “He called 911 when this professor attacked him?”

“Before that. That was his whole harebrained scheme. He was sure that Azel was MA15 and he just – I think he felt like he’d been played, which in a way he was. Anyway, he decided to play Azel, get him to make an incriminating statement, solid evidence. I’m not sure, but from a couple things Sam said before the ambulance got there and a couple things the police said, when he first got there he started coughing and got Azel to go for some water, and somewhere in there he opened the door a crack and dialed 911. He coughed to cover the sound of the call and said something like, ‘I’m glad you’re home, Professor Azel,’ to let them know where he was, and then he right away started talking about MA15. He hoped that between the coughing and the talk about MA15 it’d be enough to keep the 911 dispatcher listening.”

“And if it hadn’t been – ”

“If it hadn’t been, I’d have been there, Dad.”

“But he didn’t know that.”

“No. He’s an idiot.” Dean couldn’t help but smile a little. “But he’s an idiot who caught MA15.”

John shook his head. “A good lawyer might be able to get everything Azel said dismissed.”

“Maybe. But everyone’ll still know.”

John shook his head again.

“That tube – ” Dean said – “that’s for his lung?”

“Yes. It was partly collapsed when one of his broken ribs punctured it. The doctor says it’s really not as bad as it looks, he should be out in a week or so. The broken ribs will give him more pain than anything else.”

“Do we – do you know anything about Azel’s condition?”

“No.”

“I keep thinking there should’ve been some other way to handle it, but Sam was in such bad shape and then Azel acted like he was going to throw this knife right down into him – ”

“You don’t need to explain, son.”

For a moment, the sound of the machine and a couple of people talking at the nurse’s desk down the hall were the only sounds in the room.

“You should get some sleep,” Dean said. “You were at work when I called, right? Hell of a long day.”

“I want to be here when he wakes up,” John said.

Dean nodded and passed a hand over his face.

This is what happened on the afternoon of May 2nd:

“Of course I’m taking my finals,” Sam said. His voice was quiet and his breath a little short, but he was firm. “I’ll get people to bring me notes, from the last week of classes, and. I’ll be out of here by next Monday.”

John started to speak, then stopped himself and gave a wry smile to his son. Having showered, shaved, eaten, and slept for three hours at Dean’s house, John was looking less haggard, though still weary. “All right. That means you’ll have the choice of taking your finals in pain or hazy on pain medication. Maybe you’ll remember that in the future if you’re tempted to pull a fool stunt like this one again.”

“I knew it was him, Dad. I knew it. But there wasn’t any evidence – ”

He finally heeded the hand his father held up. “I’ve heard it before. Now this is the end of this argument: The police do the investigating. Do you understand?”

Sam sighed, then winced, briefly closing his blackened eye and twitching his bruised mouth. “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you.” John looked around. “Where’s that remote?”

“Don’t care. Just once I want to talk to my dad. Instead of watching TV.”

“Your dad’s not much of a talker.”

“Why not? I mean, we don’t have to get real deep. Or emotional or anything. Why can’t we just talk? About stuff?”

“Well, you know, I can’t talk much about work. Some things we need to keep quiet, and some things I just don’t feel like going over again. That leaves – what? Culture, current events? I just – don’t keep up much.” John let out a deep breath, not quite a sigh, his gaze distant. “Your mother, she kept up on all that kind of things. She’d have been – She was the parent you needed.”

“I needed you, Dad. I still do. You live up to all these great principles, standards, and then – ” Sam stopped, catching his breath.

“And then I was never around.”

“I just wanted, you know. I wanted you to know that I was – ”

John looked puzzled. “That you were what?”

“Well, you know, living up to the standards. A worthwhile son.”

“Worthwhile!” John’s voice was so loud it apparently startled even him. He dropped it down. “Worthwhile? You were worthwhile the day you were born. And then you grew up so smart, such a good hard worker, and I’m – ”

“You’re what?”

John couldn’t look at him. “I’m the one who took your mother from you. Not really someone to live up to.”

“Dad, that’s just – OK, OK,” as John shook his head. “I know, I understand, you’ve always blamed yourself and – ” Sam paused for breath and winced again – “and I can’t change that. You’re gonna feel guilty. But can’t you, can’t you believe that I don’t blame you? Dean doesn’t. I mean, we’ve talked about this, Dean and me. And we both -- ”

“OK, just rest, son.”

Sam gave him a classically Sam stubborn look. “We both agree, neither of us. Ever blamed you. Even if we ever had, we’ve seen how much you suffered. The thing – ” He took another breath, still looking stubborn – “the thing is, I think you kind of avoid us. Because you do think we blame you. So we get punished, for you feeling guilty.” He took another breath. “Not fair.”

“No. It’s not.” John thought for a moment. “You’re right. I just don’t have much in the way of cold reason, where – where that’s concerned.”

“So you think, think you could – be with us a little more? I mean, when there’s not an emergency?”

“You don’t think it’s a little late?”

Sam gave his father a major bitchface.

“I’ll try, Sam. I’ve never been, I never was a great conversationalist.”

“Just be good – to hear what you think about things. Like I say, see you when it’s not an emergency.”

“Hey, I was going to drive up tonight and take you to dinner for your birthday. You were the one who created the emergency.”

“That’s for sure,” Dean said, coming into the room. “Man, you both look like crap. Will you go get some sleep, Dad?”

John nodded. “Might not be a bad idea.”

Dean turned to Sam. “Like you thought, you can follow the lecture class remotely. The two where you know someone from Schuyler, I tracked ’em down and they’ll bring your notes. The fourth one, I talked to the teacher, she’ll find someone to get you notes. I didn’t go to the history department. Didn’t really know what to say.”

“Simple,” Sam said with a grin. “Hi, I’m the guy who shot your teacher. When he was trying to kill my brother. My brother wants to know what to do about finals.”

“Wildly amusing, Sam,” Dean said with a straight face.

“Sam?” A female voice, high and light from stress, came from the door.

Before any of the men could say anything, Jess had somehow brushed past the visitors in the tiny room and was on her knees by Sam’s bed, her face on his shoulder and her hand on his arm.

“Stupid – ” her voice was muffled – “dumb – stupid – ”

“It’s OK,” Sam said softly, stroking her hair. “I’m OK.”

“But keep saying it,” John said. “Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

Jess stood, looking at John, trying to smooth her hair with one hand while Sam held the other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was in such bad – I mean, he looks – ”

“This is Jess, Dad,” Sam said. “Jess, this is my dad, John Winchester. You met Dean, of course.”

“Nice to – know about you,” John said, shooting a look at Sam. “Are you in one of Sam’s classes?”

“We just kinda got to know each other on campus,” Sam said.

Jess looked at him, apparently somewhat surprised. “Is that what you tell people?”

“I figure, you know – ”

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t like to talk about that, but your dad should know. MA15 tried to rape me, Mr. Winchester. Sam stopped him.”

“Oh! That was you?” John said. “Hell of a way to get acquainted.”

She smiled at him briefly and looked back down at Sam, as Dean stood and pushed his chair over next to her. “I was working on a finals project all last night, haven’t seen any news. I ran across a friend of mine at lunch and she said, ‘Is that your Sam, the one who almost got killed by the teacher? A bunch of people are saying he’s MA15.’”

“I wanted to wait to call you until I wasn’t so – ” Sam vaguely indicated his face.

“And you thought no one on campus would be talking about it in the meantime?”

“Dean, take this chair,” John said, standing. “I’m going to take your advice and get some sleep. Jess, it was nice – ”

“Hey. Cas,” Dean said.

The other three looked over at Cas, who was standing in the doorway – about the only spot left in the half-room.

Cas was looking directly at Dean. “Are you all right?”

Dean hesitated, then simply said, “Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Um – Dad, this – ” He extended his hand toward the newcomer, then dropped it – “this is Cas. He’s a friend of Sam’s. From the scholarship hall.”

“A friend of Dean’s, too,” Sam said, looking all three of the other men in turn.

Cas gave Sam a smile. “Obviously you don’t need visitors.”

“I was just about to leave – Cas, is it?” John said, taking a couple of steps toward the door. “Come on in.” He turned. “Jess, it was nice meeting you. Hope to get a chance to know you better.”

“Seeing as how I’m never letting Sam out of my sight again, you probably will,” Jess said, still sounding a bit shaken.

John chuckled. “I’ll be back in a few hours, Sam,” he said, and departed.

Jess smiled weakly at Cas. “You’re the one who works at – ”

Dean went to Cas and embraced him. Cas wrapped his arms around Dean, stroking Dean’s shoulder gently with one hand.

Jess raised her eyebrows, her expression registering sudden realization. Sam looked up at her, and seemed to realize that no explanation was needed.

Dean released Cas, but kept one hand on his back, looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry I woke you up this morning. Didn’t realize it was 5:30.”

“I was glad you called.”

“Yes,” Jess said, looking at Sam meaningfully. “I would have been glad to get a call.”

“Five-thirty this morning, I was under heavy-duty sedation,” Sam told her, then looked at Dean. “The question is, why were you awake at 5:30?”

Dean shrugged. Cas said, “He couldn’t sleep. He kept waking up with nightmares about shooting people.”

“Pretty crazed,” Dean said, looking wryly at Sam. “Some of ’em I shot Azel, some of ’em I shot you, some of ’em I got shot. They were too fast to really track. About every third one woke me up. Good times.”

“Damn, Dean! Why didn’t you tell me or Dad?”

“Compared to what’s going on with you? A few nightmares is nothing.”

“All the same,” Cas said, “I think you should talk to someone at the Health Center about a counseling session. Or maybe see if the police Victim Services have someone.”

“I’m not a victim.”

“You walked in to see your brother beaten to a pulp, and then you were forced to shoot someone to save Sam from further injury. You should talk to someone about this, at least once or twice.”

“I second the motion,” Jess said.

“I third it,” Sam said.

Dean rolled his eyes. “I think you two should be alone. Cas, you want to – I know you just got here – ”

“I think we’d be leaving Sam in good hands,” Cas said with a smile. “Sam, do you need anything from your room?”

“Dad and Dean brought my laptop – Yeah, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’ It’s on my desk. I can finish that, and by then I’ll feel like hitting some of the other books.”

“I’ll bring it tonight. Nice seeing you again, Jess.”

“Nice seeing you, too,” she said, and finally sat in the chair Dean had provided as Dean and Cas left. She turned to Sam, still holding his hand. “Now. Exactly what the heck happened?”

Dean and Cas were approaching the Impala in the hospital parking lot when Dean said, “Are you done with classes for the day?”

“I am if you need me.”

Dean shook his head, opening the driver’s door. “I’m gonna go home and crash. I think I’ll really be able to get some sleep now.”

He got in, leaned over to unlock Cas’ door, and Cas got in. “Well, call me if you need anything. Classes seem kind of unimportant, comparatively.”

“Tell me about it. I’m takin’ today off, but I’m going to make myself start back to class tomorrow, and I’m not sure how much I’m gonna be able to concentrate.”

“Probably not much,” Cas said. “Just do what you can do. You’ve been working all the rest of the semester, I don’t think you’ll blow your grades just because your last week was – ”

“Surreal,” Dean said.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to tell Dad.”

Cas looked at him. “Good.”

“I mean, in the next few days. Before he leaves town.”

“Will he be able to handle that, and Sam, too?”

Dean pondered for only a moment. “He’ll have to. I felt rotten just now, Cas. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“When you walked in, I wanted to grab you, say thanks for helping me this morning, tell Dad how great you are. And all I did was stand there and tell Dad you’re a friend of Sam’s.”

“I understood.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there when Jess came in. She ran over to Sam, tried to hug him as much as she could, held his hand the whole time. You heard her tell Dad, ‘I’m never letting Sam out of my sight again.’ Meanwhile, we’re standing there not looking at each other. Because I’m a coward.”

“I wouldn’t say coward.”

“I would. I’m telling him soon, Cas.”

Cas nodded, but slowly. “You know how much I’d be cheering you on, normally. But I’m – if your dad – doesn’t react well, you’ll have two crises to deal with in one week. Are you really up for that?”

“You gonna stand by me?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’m up for it.” Dean started the Impala, and the tension in his face relaxed a little at the roar. “Where’s your next class?”

This was part of a story in the University Daily Kansan on Tuesday, May 3rd:

On Monday, the same day that he was released from Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Associate Professor of History Arnold Z. Azel was arrested and charged with assaulting Wichita freshman Sam Winchester.

Azel had sustained a gunshot wound in a confrontation at his home involving Winchester and Winchester’s brother, Dean Winchester, Wichita junior. Azel remained overnight in the hospital and was met by Lawrence and KU police officers with search warrants when he arrived home Monday.

Officers removed several filled evidence boxes from Azel’s home. According to a source close to KUPD, the search stemmed from a 911 tape that recorded at least part of the confrontation.

The source also stated that further charges against Azel could be expected.

At about 5:30 on Thursday afternoon, Sam was sitting up in bed, though the tube was still in his chest. There was more color in his face in both good and bad ways – less wan and pain-pinched, but the bruising was truly spectacular.

“What I don’t understand,” Sam said, “is – what was the shiny thing he was keeping in the desk? I’m pretty sure he had the branding iron there, from his face when I suggested it. But Rita said he took something like a diamond out of his pocket and took it down there. What was that?”

John, looking fifteen years younger than the night he’d arrived, sighed. “This is how it’s going to be when you’re a lawyer, isn’t it? You’re going to let your old man talk to the local PD and then pump him for information?”

“Of course.”

John grinned a bit. “Well, seeing how they wouldn’t have the evidence if it wasn’t for you – But again, you don’t discuss this with anyone.”

“Got it.”

“Not even Jess.”

“Not even Jess.”

“He took jewelry from his victims, trophies. They think he’d carry it around with him for a while, then at some point – they don’t know if it was soon afterward or only when he started planning the next crime – but then he’d put the previous trophy in the desk. They’ve done well getting identification of the jewelry from the girls so far.”

Sam gaped. “But then – they’ve made the case!”

John looked noncommittal. “If his lawyer gets the 911 tape thrown out, the evidence will go with it. But, just in my personal opinion, I think the prosecution has a pretty good chance.”

Sam’s gape turned to a huge smile. “If you think they have a pretty good chance, they can stick a fork in him.”

“We’ll see,” John said. He leaned forward a little. “Tell me about Rita.”

Sam shrugged, as best he could. “You know. She’s Arnie’s daughter. We dated.”

“And she told you that her father was keeping valuables downstairs? Is she just a trusting soul, or were you two close?”

“We – I – ” Sam shifted a little, avoiding his father’s gaze. “I think I was as close to Rita as you could get to her.”

“Ah.”

“She was pretty messed up. Which, now that I know her father’s a sociopath, that explains a lot.”

“I suppose it does. Still, I have a hard time understanding anyone who discovers the identity of a serial rapist and doesn’t – Even understanding that it’s her father, just for the sake of girls her age, girls like her, you’d think she’d at least give the police an anonymous tip.”

Sam shook his head. “A guy gave her a black eye once. I told her to go to the police, and she refused to do it, she just broke up with the guy. I told her he’d do the same thing to other girls as long as he kept getting away with it, and she just said, ‘Other people have to take care of themselves.’”

“She must’ve been pretty hot stuff.”

“Um – why do you – ”

“Just so completely opposite of your approach to life. There had to be some reason for the attraction.”

“Yeah, I – you know – she was – ”

John took pity. “Jess seems to me more like someone you have some things in common with.”

“Actually, yeah.”

“So,” John said, “if I’m a little more – reachable in the future, you think there’s a chance that you might tell me more about the important people in your life?”

“Yeah. That’s fair.”

“Hey,” Dean said, walking in. “How you doin’, Sammy?”

“I hurt. Trying to wean myself off pain meds. Other than that, OK.”

“You’re not getting out of here until your lung heals up, so you might as well take the meds.”

“Right. You’d be doing the same thing if you were here.”

Dean hesitated. “True. Well, I saw the dinner cart down the hall, so it’s time for Dad and me to get going.”

Sam moaned. “Will I ever eat real food again? Ever?”

John laughed heartlessly. Dean said, “If you quit whining I’ll bring you back a piece of pie.”

“Apple?”

“If they got it.”

“OK.” With a sigh, Sam picked up a textbook. “Have a good time.”

Once in the Impala, Dean leaned over to unlock the door for his father, then sat back and gripped the steering wheel with his left hand as if it were a source of support while John got in.

“Did you forget something?” John asked after a moment’s silence.

“No. I was just thinking. I have something to tell you, and I think I should do it now. Then if you want to have dinner separately, I can drop you anywhere you want to go.”

John’s expression indicated that he didn’t think he was ready for any more shocks, but his voice sounded almost casual. “Something about shooting Azel?”

“Oh. No, this is about me. It’s a personal thing. I wanted to – Well, that’s a lie. I wanted not to tell you before now. But lately I decided it’s worse not telling you than telling you. I want to be honest with you, Dad. And not a – not be a coward. So. I’m gay. And, well, that’s it.”

John looked at Dean’s face for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he shifted his gaze to look out the car’s windshield.

“Sorry to hit you with that when you’ve been worrying about Sam. I was – When you finally start being honest with people, you, it’s kind of like a flood, you can’t stand the idea of being honest with some people and not with others. Especially when it’s people you love. Your dad.”

John nodded, still not looking at Dean. Dean gave him a moment, rubbing a fingerprint off the inside of a window.

“How – ” John cleared his throat. “How long?”

“Basically my whole life. Well, you know, since I started being – aware of stuff.”

John nodded again.

“Are you – all right?” he asked after a moment. “Happy, even though – ”

“I’m very happy, Dad. The only thing I’m worried about is if you’re OK with it.”

John looked at Dean directly, his expression baffled. “I don’t really know if I’m OK, I’m – You just don’t seem – like that.”

“I, well, I am.”

John shook his head, looked out the window. “I know it’s not politically correct, but I’m having a hard time. I don’t, I don’t like to think about – ”

“Then don’t. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about Sam being with Jess?”

“Well. No. That’s a good point. Homosexu – Gayness, it seems – different. Kind of throws everything off in the way I think.”

Dean cocked his head, and for an instant looked like Cas considering a response. “Well, it – I kind of understand why. But it shouldn’t seem so different. Sam’s found a great girl that he loves. I’ve found a great guy that I love. We’re both gonna – ”

“You have?”

John’s tone was sharp enough that Dean looked surprised. “Yeah. I have. That’s one of the reasons why being in the closet kind of isn’t an option for me anymore. For one thing, the way he puts it, he values openness. For another, I’m so proud of him and so, so stupidly lucky to have him, there’s just no way I could keep lying to everyone. I want him to be with me, I want to be with him, all the time. Eventually I want us to live together. You know, you go everywhere with someone and live with him, people are gonna figure out the situation. So – You were gonna know sooner or later, Dad. This is basically a short cut, telling you.”

“But – this – person – Is he the one who – convinced you – ”

A pause while Dean worked on it, and then he roared with laughter, putting a damper on it as quickly as he could. “Did he convince me I’m gay? No, Dad. No. I tried denying it to myself for a long time, but basically I’ve known since I was twelve. It was just a question – ” he smiled reminiscently – “a question of saying it to myself. When I did that, I started being able to say it to other people.”

“Did you tell Sam?”

“Yeah, but it turns out he’s known for a few years. You remember finding a bunch of research about gay people on his desk?”

John looked baffled. Then his jaw dropped as a memory came to him, and Dean tried to stifle his laughter again.

“I was worried,” John said helplessly.

“Well, good news, Dad. You don’t have to worry about either of us.”

John nodded.

After a moment, Dean said, “So – do you want – ”

“You, you take precautions? So you don’t get – sick?”

“We both do. But we’re both healthy, Dad, and we’re in an exclusive relationship.”

“Mm. You’re sure.”

“I’m not gonna push this on you right now, Dad, but later I really want you to get to know him. You’re going to feel a hell of a lot better.”

“Well.” John nodded, looking out through the front window again.

“So, do you, do you want me to drop you off somewhere? Or – ”

“Why? We’re going to dinner, aren’t we?”

Dean grinned. “Guess we are.” He started the engine.

“I love you, son,” John said, still looking out the window. “Nothing changes that, you know.”

His hand on the gearshift, Dean went completely still as he blinked hard a couple of times. A tear rolled down his face. “Love you too, Dad.”

John nodded. 

Dean took a breath, blinked again, and put the car in gear.

This happened on Saturday, May 7th:

Sam gave a final wave as John’s car turned the corner at the end of the block. Dean rested a box on the edge of the Impala’s open trunk so he could wave too, then put the box in with several others, and closed the trunk. He slid into the driver’s seat and looked at Sam, who was easing himself into the passenger side. “That’s it. If I find anything else, I’ll run it over to you.”

“I really appreciate your taking all that stuff out of your house.” Sam pulled the door shut slowly but securely. “I really think I could’ve taken a box or two.”

“Maybe, but the doctors and Dad both said no.”

Sam looked rebellious as Dean began the drive to Schuyler. “Well, when we go back to Wichita next weekend, I’m going to help with the loading, at least a little.”

“It’s not that big a strain, Sam. And I won’t be loading up my own stuff, so there won’t be that many – ”

“Why not?”

“Oh. Told Dad, forgot to tell you. I’m going to drive you home after finals and stay for a week, then come back here over the summer. I’m gonna keep working at Bobby’s, maybe get another part-time job. Cas’ll be working too. We’re going to look for an apartment.”

“Well, just make sure it’s near the hall.”

“Yeah, I’d say I’m sorry about taking your friend away, except I’m not.”

“No, you. I want to see you once in a while.”

“You do?” Dean flashed him a quizzical smile. “You mean, like without bringing someone else along?”

Sam looked a little embarrassed. “You know, as much as I’ve always admired you, the last couple years it was hard to talk. You’re the one with the social skills and all the friends and the wisecracks. I’m basically a nerd who plays soccer. What do I have to talk to you about? What I learned about light refraction in class that day? If Dad and I disagree on something, I know you’re gonna take his side. And then the last few years, watching you date girls you had no interest in and talk like this big stud – I understood why you did it, believe me. I did. But it was embarrassing all the same. It was like watching my fantastic older brother kind of pander and grovel to society.”

Dean, braking at a stoplight, shook his head a little. “I cannot tell you how differently I see the whole thing. I just figured, you’re smarter than I am, you’re on a different track, you’re not gonna be interested in what I have to say. I thought that was why you were such a fan of Azel’s. He could talk on a higher level than most people.”

“You know, I – Well, wait. First. Any time you want to drop the I’m-just-a-big-dumb-lug shtick, feel free. I don’t know if that’s part of the straight-stud routine or what, but you could talk on as high a level as you wanted to. There’s not that damn much difference in our tracks, OK?”

“You sound like Cas,” Dean mumbled.

“Well, good for Cas,” Sam retorted. His voice became less challenging. “And Arnie – Azel – I did a lot of thinking about this in the hospital. I was trying to figure out, how could I put so much faith in someone like that? At first I thought it was what you said, that he talked so well and seemed so confident in his ideas. But then I finally had to admit: It was because, you know, he flattered me. Kept saying how remarkable I was for understanding what he was saying. He kind of implied that I was one of the people – Well, he made me feel exceptional. Like I could handle anything. And I was so scared, with MA15 knowing where I lived and sending me stuff, it really helped to draw on that feeling. I’m exceptional. Nothing can get me.”

Dean pulled into a parking space behind Schuyler, turned off the car, and turned to stare at his brother. “What the hell, Sam? You are exceptional. Always have been. Why’d you need Azel to tell you that?”

Sam shrugged and looked away. Dean raised his eyebrows and let the silence stretch out.

“Didn’t feel like it,” Sam said at last. “About the only way I can get Dad’s attention is to have a fight with him. Even if you’re smart, there’s always someone who’s smarter. And you know, academics and soccer aren’t everything. I don’t know. I kind of always felt like I was faking it, like someone was going to figure out what a fraud I was sooner or later.”

“Sorry, man. I was clueless. You know, I kind of remember Dad taking more of an interest, not burying himself in his work so much, before Mom died. And Mom was great. You got screwed. There was never anyone around encouraging you.”

Sam looked directly at Dean. “I wouldn’t say that. Yeah, we may have been in competitive-brother mode most of the time, but I remember a lot, a lot of nights, where you made dinner and made sure I finished my homework. You were the one who helped me not to be afraid of the dark. You were the one who told me that 11-year-olds don’t get to watch adult movies on cable.”

Dean laughed. “Good for me. Of course it was totally hypocritical, ’cause when you were 7 or 8, I’d pack you off to bed and watch it so I could tell everyone I was watching dirty movies. They never really grabbed me, though. After a while I figured out why.”

Sam chuckled.

Then he said, “Well. We can only postpone unloading the trunk for so long. And I’m going to take a box up, like it or not. Give me a light one, I’ll be OK.”

“We can postpone it for a while more. Cas called, told me he had something he wants to show us.”

“I don’t want to see anything Cas has to show you.”

“Us, I said us. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“My mind?”

Ribbing each other and laughing, they made their way through the hall’s lobby to the door that led to the basement.

“Great, Dean,” Sam said, looking down the staircase with apprehension. “All that concern for my welfare goes out the window when Cas says, ‘Come downstairs.’”

“Deal with it, Samantha. You were the one who was going to take up a career in moving with three broken ribs.”

Dean galloped down the stairs ahead of Sam, who, looking disgusted, descended the stairs carefully with a couple of “Oofs.” The room at the bottom was brightly lit, and Sam could see another guy’s feet, presumably Cas’, as he descended. There was another pair of legs, slender girl’s legs clad in jeans and sparkly sandals, and the edge of a table decorated in crepe paper – 

“Surprise!” a group of people yelled.

Dean, standing just inside the doorway, grabbed Sam’s arm as he took the bottom step as though to keep him from falling over, but Sam just went stock-still, then grinned.

He looked over at Dean, who was standing next to Cas, as the partiers laughed. “You figured I hadn’t had enough shocks lately?”

“Jess was hung up at a family thing or we couldn’t have yelled,” Gordon said with a smile. “She threatened to kill Andy and Travis and me, if we scared you and you banged into something. Come on over and sit down.”

“I am not an invalid,” Sam declared. “I could probably – Hey, Ash!”

“Hey, Sam. Great party they’re having for you. Glad you could make it.” Ash extended a can of orange soda. 

Sam took it and popped the top, looking over at the food table, where Rachel was helping herself to a bunch of grapes. “Hey, Rachel, cute shirt!”

It was a sky-blue T-shirt with glittering angel’s wings on the back. Rachel turned with a smile. “It’s my prize. Cas knew he’d be studying for finals tomorrow, and he was so far behind me he knew there was no way he could win over the next week.”

“Well, congratulations! Cas has good taste.”

“Actually, I picked this out when he welshed on the first prize I suggested.”

“Hey, it’s not welshing!” Cas said plaintively. “She wanted me to do her household chores for a month this summer. I’m not going to be home this summer.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Sam laughed.

Cas shrugged, smiling. “I think that falling in love makes me the de facto winner anyway.”

“Is it OK if I gag and die?” Rachel inquired. “Sam, do you mind if we do the present-opening later? I’ve been dying for a foosball rematch with Andy.”

Andy finished stuffing a cupcake in his mouth. “Don’t know why I said yes. She came close to beating me last time. If I lose to a fruit-eating girl, I’m never leavin’ the house again.”

The two headed for the foosball table, detouring around Chuck and Becky, who had just cranked up Pink’s “Raise a Glass” on the stereo.

Sam took a swig of soda. “This is great, Cas. Thanks.”

“Actually, it was Dean’s idea.”

“You know, I didn’t get you a present,” Dean explained.

Sam gave him a funny look. “Birthday present,” he said, holding out his left hand as if it were a dish on a scale. “Saving my life,” as he held out the soda can, and then the soda can dropped while his left hand flew up in the air. “I think I’d give you a pass on the present this year.”

“Oh, I’d do better than that,” a soft female voice said behind him. “I’ll give you a pass on presents for a couple of years.”

Sam had finished turning by the time Jess had finished. She was standing behind him at the foot of the stairs, holding a bright green gift bag, and she gave Sam a gentle but long kiss as he faced her.

“Winners all around,” Cas murmured.

Dean ran a hand across his shoulders. “You don’t need to tell me.”

Pam sidled over to Gordon with a flirtatious remark. Ash was telling Travis about his new gaming system. Chuck and Becky were either having mutual spasms or dancing. There was an agonized cry from Andy at the foosball table. Oblivious to it all, Sam and Jess kept kissing.


End file.
